Unemployment claims in the week ended October 1 rose 21,000 to 390,000, with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita still having an impact, the Labor Department said Oct. 6.
The consensus forecast of Wall Street economists was for 350,000 claims.
Claims in the previous week were revised to a decrease of 66,000 to 369,000 compared with the initial estimate of a fall of 79,000 to 356,000.
The four-week average of initial claims rose 15,750 to 404,500. Meanwhile, the number of Americans receiving state jobless benefits rose 118,000 to 2.91 million in the week ended September 24.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2005
