July 5, 2012 8:45 AM, EDT

Initial Jobless Claims Fall by 14,000 for Week

Initial jobless claims fell by 14,000 last week, the Labor Department said Thursday.

The decline to 374,000 claims was below economists’ forecasts of 385,000, Bloomberg reported.

The four-week moving average, a less volatile measure, fell to 385,750, Labor said.

The number of people receiving continuous jobless benefits rose 5,000 to 3.31 million for the previous week ended June 23.