A day ahead of the release of the more closely watched monthly jobs report, the Labor Department released a report on Thursday showing a slight drop in first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits in the week ended October 27th.
The report said initial jobless claims edged down to 214,000, a decrease of 2,000 from the previous week's revised level of 216,000.
Economists had expected jobless claims to come in unchanged compared to the 215,000 originally reported for the previous week.
Meanwhile, the Labor Department said the less volatile four-week moving average crept up to 213,750, an increase of 1,750 from the previous week's revised average of 212,000.
The report said continuing claims, a reading on the number of people receiving ongoing unemployment assistance, fell by 7,000 to 1.631 million in the week ended October 20th.
With the decrease, continuing claims dropped to their lowest level since hitting 1.603 million in July of 1973.
The four-week moving average of continuing claims also dipped to a 45-year-low of 1,640,750, a decrease of 6,250 from the previous week's revised average of 1,647,000.
On Friday, the Labor Department is scheduled to release its closely watched report on the employment situation in the month of October.
Employment is expected to climb by 190,000 jobs in October after rising by 134,000 jobs in September, while the unemployment rate is expected to hold at 3.7 percent.
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