New claims for US unemployment benefits rose last week, the Labor Department said today, a day ahead of the release of the national employment report for August.
In the week to August 29, initial jobless claims, an indicator of the pace of layoffs, rose by 12,000 to 282,000.
The weekly claims level remained generally in the same low range of the past half-year. The four-week moving average was 275,500, compared to 303,250 a year ago.
The Labor Department will tomorrow publish broader labour market data for August as economists and the Federal Reserve wait for signs of tightening - especially wage rises - that have not surfaced despite the steady fall in the overall unemployment rate.
Analysts on average expect job creation to run at about 217,000 positions, around the same as July, and the unemployment rate to fall slightly to 5.2%.
