With the more closely watched monthly jobs report looming, the Labor Department released a report on Thursday showing first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits remained flat in the week ended April 27th.
The report said initial jobless claims came in 208,000, unchanged from the previous week\'s upwardly revised level.
Economists had expected jobless claims to inch up to 212,000 from the 207,000 originally reported for the previous week.
\"Initial claims were unchanged in the week ended April 27 and remain comfortably below our estimate of their breakeven level, or that consistent with no monthly job growth, of 265,000,\" said Ryan Sweet, Chief U.S. Economist at Oxford Economics.
He added, \"One reason that new filings are low is that new laid-off workers are still finding new work fairly quickly, limiting the rise in the take-up rate for initial claims.\"
Meanwhile, the Labor Department said the less volatile four-week moving average dipped to 210,000, a decrease of 3,500 from the previous week\'s revised average of 213,500.
The report also said continuing claims, a reading on the number of people receiving ongoing unemployment assistance, came unchanged from the previous week at 1.774 million in the week ended April 20th.
The four-week moving average of continuing claims edged down to 1,788,750, a decrease of 3,750 from the previous week\'s revised average of 1,792,500.
On Friday, the Labor Department is scheduled to release its more closely watched monthly employment report for April.
Economists currently expect employment to jump by 243,000 jobs in April after surging by 303,000 jobs in March, while the unemployment rate is expected to hold at 3.8 percent.