Unemployment claim filings dip

Initial filings for insurance fall by 12,000 to 545,000, but continuing claims grow.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment insurance fell last week, while ongoing claims jumped, the government said Thursday.

There were 545,000 initial jobless claims filed in the week ended Sept. 12, down 12,000 from a revised 557,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said in a weekly report.

A consensus estimate of economists surveyed by Briefing.com expected 557,000 new claims.

The 4-week moving average of initial claims was 563,000, down 8,750 from the previous week's revised average of 571,750.

"This looks good with claims down by 31,000 over the past four weeks, but the late Labor Day could well have distorted the latest data," wrote economist Ian Shepherdson of High Frequency Economics in a research note.

"We need to see what happens over the next couple of weeks before we can be sure whether a downward trend is really in place," Shepherdson said.

Continuing claims: The government said 6,230,000 people filed continuing claims in the week ended Sept. 5, the most recent data available. That's up 129,000 from the preceding week's revised 6,101,000 claims.