Weekly jobless claims drop by 10,000

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WASHINGTON, April 7 (UPI) -- First-time benefit claims for unemployment insurance fell by 10,000 in the week ending April 2, the U.S. Department of Labor said Thursday.

In the week, 382,000 initial claims were filed. Claims have fallen in eight of the past 11 weeks.

During the week, the four-week rolling average of initial claims filed fell by 5,750 to 389,500.

The unemployment rate in March fell from to 8.9 percent to 8.8 percent.

The Labor Department said the biggest increases in first-time jobless benefits claims for the week ending March 26 were reported by Texas with 3,866 additional claims, California, which added 3,580, and Oregon, which added 2,785.

For the week ending March 26, the biggest decreases were reported by North Carolina with a decline of 3,137, Massachusetts with a decline of 2,251 and Florida, where initial claims fell by 1,151.