More people signed up unemployment benefits last week, a fresh sign that the job market is softening as the economy loses speed.
The Labor Department reported Thursday that new applications filed for unemployment insurance rose by a seasonally adjusted 1,000 to 349,000. Economists were expecting new filings for jobless benefits to dip to around 340,000 for last week.
The economy, which posted its best growth in four years during the summer, probably slowed to a pace of around 1.5 percent or less in the final three months of this years, according to economists’ projections. The sour housing market and harder-to-get credit are expected to weigh on consumers and businesses alike, contributing to the expected slowdown in overall economic growth.