Reuters/Jason Reed
Mervin Sealy from Hickory, North Carolina, takes part in a protest rally outside the Capitol Building in Washington, October 5, 2011. Demonstrators were demanding that Congress create jobs, not make budget cuts during the protest.
Economists forecast that claims, which counts people applying for unemployment insurance for the first time, fell to 260,000 last week, according to the Bloomberg consensus.
The prior week saw claims rise by 7,000 to 265,000 last week.
Initial jobless claims are used as a real-time proxy for the pace of layoffs and the overall health of the labor market, since people usually file for benefits soon after they lose their jobs. The current level is near the lowest since the 1970s.