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Ahead of next week's more closely watched monthly jobs report, the Labor Department released a report on Thursday unexpectedly showing a modest decrease in first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits in the week ended March 23rd.
The report said initial jobless claims dipped to 211,000, a decrease of 5,000 from the previous week's revised level of 216,000.
The drop came as a surprise to economists, who had expected jobless claims to rise to 225,000 from the 221,000 originally reported for the previous week.
