US initial jobless claims rise to 480,000

NEW YORK: The count of claims for unemployment benefits in the US climbed to 480,000 for the week ended December 12, even as the labor market slowly comes out of the shadow of the financial crisis.

According to the US Labor Department data, the initial claims have risen by 7,000 from the previous week's 473,000.

"The four-week moving average was 467,500, a decrease of 5,250 from the previous week's revised average of 472,750," it said in a statement today.

Going by the statistics, the number of people receiving unemployment benefits too went up by 5,000 to 5,186,000 for the week ended December 5.

In the previous week, the same stood at 5,181,000. "The four-week moving average was 5,318,250, a decrease of 106,750 from the preceding week's revised average of 5,425,000," the statement noted.

Signalling that employment conditions are improving, the country's jobless rate fell to 10 per cent in November. In the previous month, the same had touched a 26-year-high of 10.2 per cent.