Weekly applications for jobless benefits are considered a proxy for layoffs, and have remained mostly in a range between 200,000 and 250,000 for the past few years.
The four-week average, which evens out some of the week-to-week swings, ticked up by 1,500 to 226,000.
The total number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits for the week of March 1 fell by 27,000 to 1.87 million.
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