WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The number of Americans losing their jobs every week has hardly changed over the past six months.

Initial jobless claims fell by 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 366,000 in the week ended Feb. 2, the Labor Department said Thursday. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch forecast a drop to 360,000.

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Claims from two weeks ago were revised up to 371,000 from an initial reading of 368,000.

Weekly applications for new unemployment benefits have ranged from 360,000 to 390,000 since the beginning of 2012. Although they’ve occasionally fallen below that level — claims fell to 330,000 in mid-January, for instance — the number has always bounced back up.

Jim Baird, chief investment strategist at Plante Moran Financial Advisors, said the level of claims “suggest that the sharp decline earlier in January was merely an anomaly and not indicative of sustainable improvement.”

In Thursday trades, U.S. stocksfell after the claims data and a report showing the nation’s productivity fell 2% in the fourth quarter. Read about decline in productivity.

Claims are a rough gauge of layoffs. They fall when the economy improves, hiring picks up and companies cut fewer workers. They rise when growth deteriorates and companies scale back.

The relatively flat trend in claims at current levels show that layoffs have waned, but that hiring hasn’t accelerated very much. The U.S. is adding about 175,000 new jobs a month and that’s been the case for about two years. Over that span the U.S. economy has grown a modest 2% annually.

By contrast, the average of weekly claims totaled 331,000 in 2005 before falling to 312,000 in 2006 during the last relatively strong phase of U.S. job creation. The unemployment rate dipped from 5.4% to as low as 4.4% in that two-year stretch.

Today, the jobless rate stands at 7.9%.

Looked at another way, the monthly average of claims dipped 2,250 to 350,500, marking a nearly five-year low.

Jobseekers at a career fair. Jobless claims fell slightly last week. Reuters

The four-week number smooths out weekly gyrations that can sometimes give a distorted picture of labor-market trends, but the low level partly reflects the plunge in initial claims in January that’s been reversed over the past few weeks. The monthly average is likely to rise in upcoming weeks.

In the week ended Jan. 26, meanwhile, continuing claims rose by 8,000 to a seasonally adjusted 3.22 million. Continuing claims reflect the number of people who already receive regular unemployment benefits.

Most states typically offer 26 weeks of unemployment pay.