"The job market continues to grow at a moderate pace"
- Jonathan Basile, a senior economist at Credit Suisse in New York
The number of Americans claiming for unemployment benefits declined to 367 thousand in the week ended January 28 from 379 thousand the week before, said the Department of Labor on Thursday.
"This is certainly a positive in front of non-farm payrolls and further supports the view that the US economy is creating more jobs with the prospect for a lower unemployment rate. Perhaps we can break below 8 per cent by year end," said Michael Woolfolk, senior currency strategist at BNY Mellon.
"The big whacking of workforces is over, and we're just waiting for pickup in activity to lift hiring a bit more strongly," said Pierre Ellis, an economist at Decision Economics in New York.
"The labor market remains on a modestly improving trajectory," said Richard DeKaser, deputy chief economist at Parthenon Group Inc. in Boston. "We are starting to move to the next phase of the labor market expansion, where hiring will increasingly overshadow layoffs."
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