Sightly more Americans apply for unemployment benefits last week, but layoffs remain relatively low

Slightly more Americans applied for jobless benefits last week, but layoffs remained in the same recent healthy range.

The number of Americans filing for jobless benefits rose by 5,000 to 219,000 for the week ending February 15, the Labor Department said Thursday. Analysts projected that 215,000 new applications would be filed.

Weekly applications for jobless benefits are considered a proxy for layoffs.

The four-week average, which evens out some of the week-to-week volatility, fell by 1,000 to 215,250.

The total number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits for the week of February 8 rose to 1.87 million, an increase of 24,000 from the previous week.

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