According to the U.S. Department of Labor , 336,000 Americans filed for unemployment insurance benefits for the first time during the week ended Dec. 29.
That’s a decrease of 21,000 from the previous week’s revised figure. The 4-week moving average was 343,750, a decrease of 750 from the previous week’s revised average.
The department’s unemployment rate was 2.1 percent for the week ended Dec. 22, an increase of 0.1 percent over the prior week.
