Jobless claims fall more than expected

WASHINGTON – Ahead of what economists believe will be a gloomy unemployment report, the Labor Department this morning said that fewer people filed initial claims for jobless benefits, a signal, that “the worst is behind us.”
The decline in filings – by a total of 38,000 to 550,000 for the week ended Aug. 1 – is a sign that “some employers have stopped paring staff as the recession eases,” said Bloomberg News.
“These numbers signal the worst is behind us, but we are not out of the woods yet,” David Semmens, an economist at Standard Chartered Bank in New York, told Bloomberg. “We are not going to see strong consumer spending with numbers that look like this.”
Indeed, U.S. employers have eliminated 6.5 million jobs since December 2007, the most of any time period since the Great Depression.
According to economists surveyed by Bloomberg, the Labor Department is expected to report tomorrow a loss of 328,000 jobs in July, which would be a near 30 percent decline from June’s numbers.