Initial jobless claims unexpectedly ticked up.
Claims, which count the number of people who applied for unemployment insurance for the first time, rose by 2,000 to 244,000.
Economists forecast that claims would dip to 240,000 from the upwardly revised 242,000.
Initial jobless claims are used as a real-time proxy for the pace of layoffs since people usually file for benefits soon after they lose their jobs.
The four-week moving average came in at 242,250, a drop of 2,750 from the previous week’s revised average.