Government data due out Thursday is expected to show that initial claims filed for unemployment benefits fell last week after surging in the prior period.
Wall Street economists surveyed by Thomson/IFR forecast that claims fell to 370,000 for the week that ended May 3. The Labor Department is scheduled to release the data at 8:30 a.m. EDT.
The department last week said applications for unemployment benefits jumped by 35,000 to 380,000, which reinforced concerns about the labor market straining amid a weak economy. Slightly more encouraging news came on Friday when the department said the unemployment rate dropped to 5 percent in April from 5.1 percent, and that employers eliminated 20,000 jobs compared with 81,000 in March.
The government's four-week moving average of new claims, which smooths out week-to-week fluctuations, last week fell by 6,500 to 363,750.
Several companies announced job cuts this week:
_ Morgan Stanley began cutting about 1,500 positions in the U.S., or about 5 percent of its total employees, in an effort to trim expenses, according to a person familiar with the plan who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
_ Swiss bank UBS AG reported a first-quarter loss of $10.97 billion and said it will cut 2,600 jobs in its investment banking arm, mostly in Britain and the U.S.
_ Student-loan services provider First Marblehead Corp. cut 500 jobs, or more than half its employees, as it deals with credit turmoil in that market.
_ A week after federal regulators rejected an experimental cholesterol drug that it heavily touted, Merck & Co. said it is eliminating 1,200 U.S. sales jobs by the end of July.
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