WASHINGTON — Fewer people are claiming jobless benefits, leading economists to project that next week’s employment report will show a sharp drop in job losses for July compared with June.
Claims for jobless aid, which track layoffs and firings, are trending downward in a modest sign of improvement in the labor market, economists note.
That helps explain why analysts are forecasting that a net total of about 340,000 jobs will have been lost in July. This would compare with a net total of 467,000 jobs lost in June and 741,000 lost in January — the most for any month since 1949.
But most economists still expect the unemployment rate to keep rising into next year. The nationwide jobless rate, which hit 9.5 percent in June, is widely expected to top 10 percent by year’s end.
The latest figures show “there has been some improvement in the job market this summer,” David Resler, chief economist at Nomura Securities, wrote in a research note.
