Wholesale Prices Fall for 1st Time Since January : Economy: In another government report for November, the number of new jobless claims drops to a three-year low.

Wholesale prices fell last month while the number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits dropped to a three-year low in late November, the government reported Thursday.

“It’s a nice little holiday gift,” Robert G. Dederick, an economist at the Northern Trust Co. in Chicago, said of the reports.

The Labor Department said wholesale prices, held to moderate gains this year, actually fell 0.2% in November. It was the first decline since the producer price index fell by a similar amount last January.

Both energy and food prices, which had risen in October, were down. Energy costs plunged 1.5%, wiping out a 1.4% advance a month earlier. And a 0.5% decline in food costs erased a 0.1% gain the previous month.

Excluding the volatile energy and food components, prices inched up a tiny 0.1%. For the year so far, wholesale prices have risen at an annual rate of just 1.4%.

At the same time, the department said first-time applications for unemployment insurance fell 38,000 to 324,000 during the week ended Nov. 28. It was the lowest since 323,000 claims were filed the week of Sept. 23, 1989.

Despite the effect of the Thanksgiving holiday on layoffs, analysts said employment trends continue to improve.

The decline was widespread; 41 states and territories reported decreases, and only 12 recorded increases. But a workweek shortened by the Thanksgiving holiday may have caused some of the big decline, the government said.

A four-week moving average also fell during the period ended Nov. 28. The moving average is considered a more reliable indicator of the labor situation because it smoothes out the erratic weekly changes in claims.

The average was 361,500, down from 369,250 a week earlier and the lowest since it reached 356,250 on July 14, 1990.

States reporting the largest decreases in regular claims were California, 24,182; Michigan, 16,674; South Carolina, 4,100; New York, 4,074, and Florida, 3,975.

It was the 10th straight week that new jobless claims have remained below 400,000, which many analysts interpret to mean that the unemployment situation gradually is improving.

“It’s consistent with other evidence that layoffs have declined,” said Lawrence Chimerine, senior economic counselor for DRI-McGraw-Hill, a Lexington, Mass., economic forecasting service.

“While there’s still some restructuring, the pace has slowed.”

Producer Price Index

For finished goods

Seasonally adjusted change from prior month Nov., ‘92: -0.2% Oct., ‘92: +0.1% Nov., ‘91: +0.1%

Soucre: Labor Department