By Kate Davidson and Harriet Torry 
 

WASHINGTON-The number of Americans applying for initial jobless claims increased last week following a dip the previous week, but remained at a historically low level.

--Initial jobless claims were up 4,000 to 214,000 in the week ended Oct. 12, the Labor Department said Thursday. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected 215,000 claims.

--The four-week moving average of claims, which smoothes out volatility in the weekly data, was 214,750. That was up slightly from the previous week's 213,750 average.

--Claims for the week ended Oct. 5 were unrevised from an initially reported 210,000.

-Continuing claims, those filed by workers unemployed for longer than a week, fell by 10,000 to 1.68 million in the week ending Oct. 5.

The Labor Department report on jobless claims can be accessed at: https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf

Write to Kate Davidson at kate.davidson@wsj.com and Harriet Torry at harriet.torry@wsj.com.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 17, 2019 08:45 ET (12:45 GMT)