In the week ending May 17, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims for unemployment insurance was 326,000, an increase of 28,000, following two weeks of solid improvement. The four-week moving average, a less volatile gauge of underlying labor market conditions, was 322,500. That's a decrease of 1,000 from the previous week's upward (by 250) revised average of 323,500. The report also revealed that fewer people are receiving unemployment benefits each week. For the week ending May 10, the number of recipients fell to 2.65 million, the fewest since December 2007—a new recovery low.
