If the trend holds up, fewer applications would suggest that the job market is improving.

“Encouraging news on the U.S. jobs front, even when you remove all of the noise,” said Jennifer Lee, an economist at BMO Capital Markets. “Weekly data are noisy, particularly at this time of year, so keep that in mind.”

Applications are a proxy for layoffs. They have fluctuated between 360,000 and 390,000 for most of last year. At the same time, employers added an average of 153,000 jobs a month. That has just been enough to slowly push down the unemployment rate, which fell 0.7 percentage points last year to 7.8 percent in December. The government will issue its January employment report at the end of next week.

The number of people continuing to claim jobless benefits is also falling. Nearly 5.7 million people were receiving unemployment aid in the week ended Jan. 5, the latest data available. That is down from almost 5.9 million in the previous week.