The latest figures from the Labor Department reported a slight decrease in the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits last week, which has been consistent with levels from previous years. Jobless claims dropped by 6,000 to 219,000 for the week ending March 29, coming in lower than the 226,000 that analysts had predicted. These weekly applications for jobless benefits serve as an indicator of layoffs and have typically ranged between 200,000 and 250,000 over recent years. The four-week average of applications, designed to provide a more stable trend by smoothing out fluctuations, also decreased by 1,250 to 223,000. However, the total number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits for the week of March 22 saw a rise of 56,000 to reach 1.9 million.