US filings for jobless aid jump to 219,00 last week but remain within stable range of past few years

US applications for unemployment benefits rose last week before Iran, Israel and the US announced a two-week ceasefire deal that injected a degree of optimism into a still-clouded global economic picture. The number of Americans applying for jobless aid for the week ending April 4 jumped by 16,000 to 219,000 from the previous week’s 203,000, the Labor Department reported on Thursday. That’s more than the 210,000 new filings analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet were expecting but within the range of the past several years.