New U.S. jobless claims fell more than expected last week, but few economists expect the labor market to improve anytime soon, according to a Labor Department report released on Thursday. The Labor Department said the tally of initial requests for unemployment insurance dropped to a seasonally adjusted 646,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 658,000—a better showing than what analysts' had expected. But continuing claims jumped 185,000 to a seasonally adjusted 5.47 million, another record-high and more than the roughly 5.33 million that economists expected.
