Jobless claims hit highest since March

WASHINGTON - The number of people seeking U.S. unemployment benefits rose 10,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 379,000, the highest since March.

The Labor Department said Thursday that the less volatile four-week average jumped 13,250 to 343,250, the second straight increase.

Applications are a proxy for layoffs. Last month, they fell to nearly the lowest level in six years, as companies cut fewer jobs. But two weeks ago, they surged 64,000 to 369,000.

Economists dismissed that spike, saying it likely reflected a Thanksgiving holiday that fell later in the month. That can distort the government’s seasonal adjustments. But if the trend continues it would be a troubling sign of rising layoffs.

The number of people receiving benefits rose sharply. More than 4.4 million people received unemployment benefits in the week that ended Nov. 30, the latest data available. That was 600,000 more than the previous week. Those figures aren’t adjusted for seasonal patterns.

Still, most other recent job market data have been positive, and economists generally expect unemployment-benefits applications will soon fall back.

“We are inclined to ignore the recent claims data,” said Joseph LaVorgna, an economist at Deutsche Bank. “We see little evidence to suggest that the labor market trend of the past few months has meaningfully changed.”

Hiring has been healthy for the past four months. The economy added an average of 204,000 jobs a month from August through November, a solid improvement from earlier in the year. The U.S. unemployment rate fell in November to a five-year low of 7 percent. The October unemployment rate in Arkansas, the most recent measurement, rose to7.5 percent from 7.4 percent in September.

The U.S. unemployment rate remains above the historic averages of 5 percent to 6 percent that are associated with strong job markets.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Wednesday that he expects the robust job gains to continue. Americans are spending more and the economy is less restrained by higher taxes and government spending cuts, he said.

Those trends have “increased our confidence that the job-market gains will continue,” Bernanke said at a news conference.

The Fed said Wednesday that it would scale back its monthly bond purchases to $75 billion from $85 billion. The purchases are intended to lower long-term interest rates and encourage more spending. The cut suggests that Fed policymakers think the job market and economy will continue to improve even with less help from the Fed.

The number of people who bought previously owned homes in November declined for the third-straight month. Higher mortgage rates have made homebuying more expensive, while the lingering effect of the October partial government shutdown might have deterred some sales.

Home resales fell 4.3 percent to an annual rate of 4.90 million, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. That was the weakest pace since December 2012 and the first time since April that the pace has slipped below 5 million.

Still, the Realtors group predicts that total sales this year will be 5.1 million. That would be the strongest showing since 2007, when the housing bubble burst. But it’s still below the 5.5 million generally associated with healthy housing markets.

Home sales could rebound in the new year if the strengthening job market lifts incomes and builds confidence in the economy, analysts say.

Over the summer, resales reached a pace of 5.39 million, the fastest in four years. But sales began to slow in September as the costs of buying a home rose.

Mortgage rates are nearly a full percentage point higher than in the spring, when they were near record lows. And a limited supply of homes on the market has driven up prices. The combination has made home buying less affordable, particularly for first-timers.

Sales in November were 1.2 percent lower than in the same month a year ago, the first year-over-year decline in 29 months.

The index of U.S. leading indicators rose more than forecast in November, a sign the economic expansion will gain traction in the months to come.

The Conference Board’s index, a gauge of the outlook for the next three to six months, increased 0.8 percent last month after rising 0.1 percent in October, the New Yorkbased group said Thursday.

Rising stock prices, the firming housing market and gains in the labor market are helping to spur spending among households, whose balance sheets have improved over the past four years. Fading fiscal drag from federal spending cuts in 2014 also will lift growth, supporting demand as the recovery accelerates.

“The economy is generating more momentum, that’s the bottom line,” Ward McCarthy, chief financial economist at Jefferies LLC, said in an interview before the report. ” We have steadily seen the economy grow faster over the course of 2013, and that suggests that the economic expansion is getting more strength.” Information for this article was contributed by Christopher S. Rugaber and Josh Boak of The Associated Press and by Victoria Stilwell of Bloomberg News.