This week’s jobless claims came in at a total of 312,000, just under the 313,000 economists were expecting. Last weeks jobless claims were revised to 318,000 from 317,000. While continuing claims were 2,561,000 also below the expected number of 2,600,000. Ian Stepherdson, Chief Economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics said, “In one line: The gentle downtrend is still intact, signaling robust payroll gains.” He also said, “Jobless claims fell to 312K from 318K, close to the consensus, 313K. Last week’s claims were revised up by 1K. We had hoped for a slightly bigger decline but the downward trend in claims is still in place.”