U.S. Jobless Claims Held Near Historic Lows Last Week

New applications for unemployment benefits ticked down last week and hovered near historic lows, a sign the U.S. labor market remains tight despite indications of an economic slowdown.

Initial jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, fell to a seasonally adjusted 229,000 last week from the previous week’s revised level of 231,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. That is slightly above the 2019 prepandemic weekly average of 218,000, when the job market was also historically tight.

Claims have steadily climbed upward since hitting a 53-year low this spring. The four-week average for claims,...