U.S. jobless claims drop

The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits for the first time took its third drop in four weeks, the Labour Department reported Wednesday.

Initial claims fell by 24,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 435,000.

Many Wall Street economists had expected less of a drop and saw the data as evidence that the U.S. job market is showing signs of life.

"The pace of hiring has picked up in the past few months," said Mark Vitner, an economist at Wells Fargo.

The department said last week that private employers added the most jobs in six months in October.

The average for the number of initial claims over the last four weeks — which is a less volatile measure and gives a better picture of the long-term trend — fell 10,000 to 446,500.

That's the lowest level for the average since the week that ended Sept. 13, 2008, just before the financial crisis intensified that weekend with the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

It's only the second time the four-week average has fallen below 450,000 this year. The first time was in March, just before a large spurt of hiring in April.

Still, that's barely enough to keep up with population growth. The economy needs to create at least 300,000 net jobs a month to make a dent in the unemployment rate, now at 9.6 per cent.