Jobless claims to accelerate, Gallup says

PRINCETON, N.J., Jan. 20 (UPI) -- Gallup Poll chief economist Dennis Jacobe said U.S. jobless claims would likely surge this week, based on a poll taken during the week ending Jan. 17.

Gallup's hiring index fell to minus six, down from a minus two reading in the previous week, Jacobe said in a statement.

The "artificially low weekly jobless claims of the holiday period continue to affect," the rolling four-week average jobless claims, Jacobe wrote. But, Gallup's four-week measure of employees' perceptions of the job market show "continued deterioration" of the employment situation, he said.

Based on the poll, "the rate of job loss in the economy is accelerating," Jacobe wrote.

Gallup's hiring measure is based interviews with 2,000 U.S. workers each week.

The maximum margin of sampling error in the sampling results is plus and minus 3 percentage points, Gallup said.