U.S. jobless claims soar

October 4, 2001 Posted: 1255 GMT

NEW YORK (CNNfn) -- New claims for unemployment benefits jumped to the highest level in nine years last week, the government said Thursday, as job cuts from last month's terror attacks hurt the travel and tourism industries.

New claims for state jobless benefits rose to 528,000 from a revised 457,000, the Labor Department reported, after jumping 64,000 the prior week to the highest since late July 1992. Economists had expected jobless claims to come in at 466,000, according to a survey by Briefing.com.

The big advance in the latest claims figures comes in part comes from layoffs in the airline, tourism and other travel-related businesses, so-called secondary effects of the Sept. 11 attacks, the department said.

The four-week moving average for jobless claims, which smoothes out fluctuations in the weekly data, came in at 453,500 for the week ending Sept. 29, above the revised 424,000 reported the previous week. The four-week results hit a level not seen since Dec. 28, 1991.

Continuing claims for workers who have received at least a week of benefits rose to 3.41 million for the week ending Sept. 22, the latest data available, from a revised 3.28 million the previous week.

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