Housing Starts Rebound Weakly in January

Construction starts on new homes and apartments rose only slightly in January, the Commerce Department said, as the housing sector showed signs of leveling off from a booming 1996. Building starts were up just 2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.35 million last month--well under the anticipated 1.42-million-unit rate--after a revised 11% plunge in December. Weather was a factor in the December building slump, notably in the West, where floods and cold hit the region, but analysts said the weak January bounce back indicated 1997 was likely to see waning construction activity. In a separate report, the Labor Department said there were 309,000 new jobless claims filed in the week ended Saturday, up 1,000 from a week earlier. But the four-week moving average fell last week to 318,250 from a revised 325,500 a week earlier.