Jobless claims for last week fell to their lowest levels since July, a sign the economy might be picking back up.
Economists had expected the number of people filing first-time claims for unemployment to drop to 375,000. Instead, they fell by 26,000--to 359,000--far lower than predicted.
The news comes as consumer confidence hit a seven-month high. Employers also expect to hire more seasonal workers for the holidays than they did last year.
Jobless claims are considered a sign of layoffs, so the large drop is welcome news. While the unemployment rate fell last month to 8.1 percent, much of the decrease is attributed to the nearly 400,000 workers who stopped looking for work. They are not counted among the unemployed.
"There's progress in the labor market but just at a subdued pace," said Sean Incremona, senior economist at 4Cast Inc., speaking to Bloomberg News.
While the overall jobless rate for the nation fell, four states reported increases in their rates of more than 1,000 over the previous week: California, Michigan, Florida and New York.
Only one state, Louisiana, reported a decrease in claims of more than 1,000.
The economic recovery has been a staggered rise thus far. "There's a lot of volatility, but it hasn't broken out of its range," said Paul Ashworth, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics, speaking to CNN. "It's still pretty high and suggests that market conditions are still pretty weak."
The volatile recovery caused the Federal Reserve to start a third round of quantitative easing, providing more government stimulus money for the economy. Many economists say this kind of government intervention kept the financial meltdown from being as bad as it could have been.
While layoffs seem to have slowed, hiring has also been sluggish. The economy added only 96,000 jobs last month, lower than expected. Economists predict gains in September of 120,000, though numbers won't be available until Oct. 5.
