First-time claims for unemployment benefits settle down after two weeks of wild swings

The Department of Labor reported Thursday that, for the week ending Oct. 20, seasonally adjusted initial claims for unemployment compensation fell to 369,000. That was a decrease of 23,000 from the previous week's revised claims of 392,000. For the comparable week of 2011, first-time claims were 397,000.

The four-week running average that analysts prefer because it flattens volatility in the weekly numbers rose slightly to 368,000.

Because of a delay in reporting a quarterly seasonal adjustment by California, the claims numbers had fallen sharply two weeks ago, then risen sharply last week. Had the adjustment been reported on time, the claims trajectory would have remained steady. Three weeks ago, the weekly first-time claims were exactly where they are now, 369,000. In fact, claims have not strayed much up or down from that number since Dec. 10, 2011, when they clocked in at 371,000.

For all programs, federal and state, the total number of people claiming benefits for the week ending Oct. 6 was 4,917,460, down 84,525 from the previous week. Ina the comparable week a year ago, 6,679,024 persons were claiming benefits in all programs. The drop stems both from people finding jobs and no longer needing benefits and from some people having exhausting their benefits without finding work.