Initial jobless claims rise to 304,000

More Americans filed initial claims for unemployment benefits last week and a new estimate for the previous week erased what had first looked like a seven year low, the Labor Department said Thursday.

First-time claims rose to a seasonally adjusted 304,000, an increase of 2,000 from the previous week's revised level, the Labor Department said.

Last week, Labor reported first-time claims for the week ending April 5 had dropped to 300,000, which was reported as the lowest since May 2007.

Economists had forecast this week's report would show a rise to 315,000, according to a survey by Action Economics.

But this time of year, jobless claims numbers can bounce around because Easter's date changes from year to year and that can affect Labor's seasonal adjustments.

The longer-term trend is still moving down, a sign of the job market's slow improvement..

In Thursday's report, Labor said the 4-week moving average was 312,000, a decrease of 4,750 from the previous week's revised average. That is the lowest level for this average since October 6, 2007 when it was 302,000.

Claims averaged well over 600,000 a week through much of 2009.

Earlier this month, the government reported the economy gained 192,000 jobs in March while January and February job gains were 37,000 higher than previously estimated. The unemployment rate held steady at 6.7%.