The Department of Labor is reporting that there were 388,000 initial claims for unemployment last week. This represents:
[A] decrease of 5,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 393,000. The 4-week moving average was 396,750, a decrease of 4,000 from the previous week's revised average of 400,750.
Last week these numbers were at their lowest level since April. This week they are slightly lower. This still isn't at the level that would signal sustained job gains—that's 375,000—but the trend is good. That said, remember that unemployment claims did fall to around that magic level in February, before climbing back up.
And remember that while getting initial unemployment claims down is an important step, there are also millions of people whose period of joblessness has dragged on and on, and that 1.8 million of them will lose their benefits in January if Congress does not act to extend emergency unemployment funding.