Jobless Claims Rise But Remain Historically Low

WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose last week but layoffs remain in the historically healthy range of the past few years. U.S. filings for jobless aid in the week ending July 25 rose by 9,000 to 197,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet forecast 207,000 new applications. Weekly filings for unemployment benefits are considered representative of layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the U.S. job market. The total number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the previous week ending July 18 was 1.78 million.