Initial Jobless Claims Decline for Week

Initial jobless claims dropped by 3,000 last week, the Labor Department said Thursday.

The decline to 456,000 claims for the week ended Saturday was smaller than economists’ forecasts of a drop to 450,000, Bloomberg reported.

The four-week moving average, a less volatile measure, rose to 463,000, from 460,500 the previous week.

Continuing claims for the previous week ended May 29 fell 255,000 to 4.46 million, the lowest since December 2008, Labor said.