U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Rose Higher Than Forecast

By Timothy R. Homan

Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) -- More Americans than anticipated filed first-time claims for unemployment benefits last week and total jobless rolls climbed to the highest level in 25 years, indicating further deterioration of the labor market.

Some 481,000 workers filed initial claims in the week ended Nov. 1, the Labor Department said today in Washington, exceeding the 477,000 projected by economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. The number of people staying on benefit rolls was the most since February 1983.

Companies are facing reduced access to credit alongside the biggest slowdown in consumer spending in 28 years. The government may report tomorrow that the economy lost 200,000 jobs in October, the most in five years and bringing the total drop so far this year to almost 1 million.

``The underlying trend in claims is rising, and we'll see confirmation tomorrow that the job market is deteriorating rapidly,'' said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts. ``Consumer spending will continue to fall sharply. This recession will be substantially deeper than the last two.''

The economists' forecast was based on the median of 39 projections in the Bloomberg survey. Estimates ranged from 460,000 to 491,000. The prior week's claims were revised up to 485,000 from an initially estimated 479,000.

Credit Losses

Standard & Poor's 500 Index futures declined 1.9 percent while the MSCI World Index lost 2.4 percent to 959.52 at 1:33 p.m. in London, extending this year's decline to 40 percent. More than $27 trillion has been erased from the value of global equity markets as credit losses and writedowns exceeded $690 billion in the worst financial crisis in seven decades.

The hurricanes that hit the Gulf Coast earlier this year are no longer having a ``significant'' influence on claims, a Labor spokesman said.

Separately, the Labor Department reported that worker efficiency rose in the third quarter at a slower pace than in the previous three months as the economy slumped, a sign employment may take a bigger hit.

Productivity, a measure of employee output per hour, rose at a 1.1 percent annual rate, more than forecast. Labor costs climbed at a 3.6 percent pace, also more than anticipated.

The four-week moving average of initial claims, a less volatile measure, was unchanged at 477,000. So far this year, weekly claims have averaged 398,000, compared with an average 321,000 for all of 2007.

The unemployment rate among people eligible for benefits, which tends to track the jobless rate, increased to 2.9 percent, the highest level since 2003. These data are reported with a one- week lag.

New Claims

Forty states and territories reported an increase in new claims, while 13 reported a decrease.

Initial jobless claims reflect weekly firings and tend to rise as job growth -- measured by the monthly non-farm payrolls report -- slows.

The economy probably lost 200,000 jobs in October, the most this year, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg before the Labor Department report set for Nov. 7. The unemployment rate may jump to its highest level in more than five years, the survey showed.

Companies are trimming staff to offset a slowdown in consumer spending. GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Europe's largest drugmaker, said yesterday it will eliminate 1,000 sales positions in the U.S. to cut costs.

The company said revenue in the U.S. last quarter dropped 13 percent.

Consumer spending declined at a 3.1 percent annual pace during the third quarter, the first decrease since 1991 and the biggest since 1980, the Commerce Department said Oct. 30.

To contact the reporter on this story: Timothy R. Homan in Washington at thoman1@bloomberg.net