(RTTNews) - Thursday morning, the Department of Labor released its report on initial jobless claims in the week ended June 21st, showing that weekly jobless claims came in unchanged compared to an upwardly revised reading for the previous week.

The report showed that jobless claims came in at 384,000, unchanged from the previous week’s revised figure of 384,000. Economists had expected jobless claims to slip to 375,000 from the previous week’s initial estimate of 381,000.

At the same time, the Labor Department said that the less volatile four-week moving average rose to 378,250 from the previous week’s revised average of 376,000.

The report also showed that continuing claims in the week ended June 14th rose to 3.139 million from the preceding week’s revised level of 3.057 million.

Earlier this month, the Labor Department raised some concerns about the strength of the labor market, with its monthly employment report showing that the unemployment rate jumped to 5.5 percent in May from 5.0 percent in April.

While economists had been expecting an increase in the unemployment rate, they had been expecting a much more modest increase to 5.1 percent.

Some economists may be looking ahead to the release of the Labor Department’s June employment report next Thursday. While the report is expected to show a decrease of about 50,000 jobs, the unemployment rate is expected to edge down to 5.4 percent.

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