Ahead of the Bell:
Unemployment benefits

[November 03, 2011]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of people seeking unemployment benefits likely fell for third straight week, a hopeful sign for the struggling job market.

Economists forecast that weekly applications dipped last week to a seasonally adjusted 400,000 from 402,000 in the previous week, according to a survey by FactSet.

The report will be released at 8:30 a.m. Thursday.

Applications are slowly declining and have fallen in four out of the past six weeks. That suggests layoffs are easing.

But applications need to fall consistently below 375,000 to signal sustainable job growth. They haven't been below that level since February. Applications have been above 400,000 for all but two weeks since March.

The economy is growing modestly but not by enough to encourage much hiring.

Last week, the government said the economy expanded at a 2.5 percent annual pace in the July-September quarter, the best quarterly growth in a year.

That's strong enough to calm fears of another recession. Still, growth would have to be nearly twice as high -- consistently -- to make a major dent in the unemployment rate, which has been stuck near 9 percent for more than two years.

The figures come a day before the government releases its October jobs report. Analysts expect employers added 100,000 net jobs, nearly the same as the 103,000 added in September. The unemployment rate is expected to stay at 9.1 percent for a fourth straight month.

Employers have added an average of only 72,000 jobs per month in the past five months. That's far below the 100,000 per month needed to keep up with population growth. And it's down from an average of 180,000 in the first four months of this year.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Wednesday that growth is likely to be "frustratingly slow," after the Fed sharply lowered its economic projections for the next two years.

The Fed now says the economy will likely expand no more than 1.7 percent for all of 2011. That's down from its June forecast of 2.7 percent to 2.9 percent. And it predicted growth of only 2.5 percent to 2.9 percent next year. In June, the Fed estimated growth of 3.3 percent to 3.7 percent in 2012.

The Fed said it doesn't expect the unemployment rate to be any lower this year. And it sees unemployment averaging 8.6 percent by the end of next year. In June, it had predicted unemployment would drop in 2012 to as low as 7.8 percent.

[Associated Press]

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