Initial jobless claims for the week ending May 23 increased by 5,000 to 215,000 (consensus 214,000) from last week’s revised reading of 210,000 (from 209,000), while continuing jobless claims for the week ending May 16 rose to 1.786 million from a revised 1.771 million (from 1.782 million) in the prior week.
The key takeaway from the report is that even with this increase in initial and continuing claims, the overall level of jobless claims remains relatively low.