Drop in initial jobless claims belies outlook

The number of newly laid-off workers requesting unemployment insurance dropped slightly last week after spiking because of auto layoffs, while continuing jobless claims moved closer to 7 million.

Jobs are likely to remain scarce through next year and maybe beyond that even though the overall economy seems to be picking up. Fresh evidence of improvement came Thursday from a private research group. It said its index of leading indicators rose in April for the first time in seven months.

The Labor Department said Thursday that initial claims for jobless benefits fell to a seasonally adjusted 631,000, down from a revised figure of 643,000 the previous week. That nearly matched analysts’ expectations of 630,000 new claims.

Many economists said that although layoffs probably are still declining, they may not be doing so as fast as had been hoped. New jobless claims, which had dropped to a 14-week low of 605,000 earlier this month, are seen as a measure of the pace of layoffs.