Applications for US unemployment benefits fell last week to the lowest in more than three years, indicating that employers are still largely holding onto workers despite a wave of recent layoff announcements.

Initial claims decreased by 27,000 to 191,000 in the week ended November 29, a period that included the Thanksgiving holiday. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for 220,000 applications. The weekly claims data can be particularly volatile around holidays.

Continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, fell to 1.94 million in the previous week, according to Labour Department data released Thursday (December 4).

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Many employers have sharply pulled bac

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