THE number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits plummeted 31,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 292,000, but the drop was mostly due to technical issues in two states that delayed the processing of applications.
The Labor Department said on Thursday that the less volatile four-week average fell to 321,250, the lowest in six years.
A government spokesman said the steep drop occurred because two states upgraded their computer systems last week and did not process all their applications.
"This is not necessarily an indication of a change in labour market conditions," he said.
The spokesman would not identify the states, but said one was small and one large. Big states like California and Texas can swing the weekly data by 10,000 or more.
Applications will likely rebound in the coming weeks, he said.
The broader trend in unemployment benefit applications has been favourable. Prior to the glitch applications had dropped 7 per cent in the previous three months. However, the decline in jobless claims has not been followed by rapid hiring.
"It's hard to believe that claims can keep declining indefinitely without a commensurate pickup in job growth," said Dan Greenhaus, chief global strategist at BTIG. "Then again, that's exactly what they have done."
Applications are a proxy for layoffs. Layoffs have been falling since 2009 and in July reached the lowest level on records dating back to 2000, according to a separate government report released this week.
But unemployment remains painfully high at 7.3 per cent more than four years after the Great Recession ended. And the economy grew at a modest 2.5 per cent annual rate in the April-June quarter.
That's made the unemployment applications data less reliable for predicting job growth than in past recoveries.
Historically, falling applications have pointed to a pickup in hiring and stronger economic growth.
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