Weekly jobless claims increase 6,000 to 225,000
Continuing claims fall 1,000 to 1.826 million
Impact of strikes, Helene may distort labor market

WASHINGTON, Oct 3 Reuters The number of Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits rose marginally last week, but the devastation unleashed by Hurricane Helene in the U.S. Southeast and strikes at Boeing and ports could distort the labor market in the nearterm.

The report from the Labor Department on Thursday showed the labor market gliding at the end of the third quarter, a state of affairs that could allow the Federal Reserve to be in no rush to deliver large interest rate cuts.

For the moment, the labor market looks steady as a rock and the economy appears to have missed falling headlong over the cliff into the depths of recession, said Christopher Rupkey, chief economist at FWDBONDS. Fed officials are unlikely to hurry ahead with aggressive interest rate cuts unless the labor market deteriorates further.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased by 6,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 225,000 for the week ended Sept. 28. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 220,000 claims for the latest week.

Unadjusted claims fell 1,066 to 180,647 last week. The decline, however, was less than the drop of 5,692 that had been anticipated by the model used by the government to strip out seasonal fluctuations from the data.

As a result the seasonally adjusted claims rose. Only Michigan…