The U.S. Department of Labor said seasonally adjusted initial unemployment claims came in at 199,000 for the week ending August 1, an increase of 1,000 from the previous week's revised level.
The four-week moving average, which smooths out weekly noise, moved the other way. It fell by 4,500 to 198,750.
Claims have stayed in a narrow band under 200,000 on both measures, so the weekly uptick and the drop in the average leave the same picture of layoff activity as the prior report.
The weekly claims report was one of several releases the department's Employment and Training Administration posted over the past month, most of them tied to workforce funding rather than to jobless filings:
- On July 30, the department announced $5.6 million to the Florida Department of Commerce for employment and training services for eligible individuals in communities affected by the closure of Spirit Airlines.
- On July 27, the department advanced a workforce-development partnership with military shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries in San Diego to expand pre-apprenticeship opportunities and strengthen the maritime workforce.
- On July 7, the department awarded nearly $162 million through five cooperative agreements to expand Registered Apprenticeship in occupations the department described as critical to the administration's reindustrialization agenda.
The department said the Huntington Ingalls partnership supports Trump administration efforts to rebuild the country's industrial base.
The Florida award is the one item in the group tied to a specific employer shutting down, and it funds services for workers in the communities the Spirit Airlines closure hit.
