WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) —The number of people who applied for new unemployment benefits in mid-December remained below 300,000, a level typically associated with strong hiring.

Initial jobless claims fell by 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 289,000 in the seven days ended Dec. 13, the Labor Department said Thursday. New applications for jobless benefits have tallied less than 300,000 in 13 of the past 14 weeks.

The average of new claims over the past month, meanwhile, slipped by 750 to 298,750. The four-week average smoothens out seasonal volatility in the weekly report and is seen as a more accurate predictor of labor-market trends.

Still, initial jobless claims often gyrate sharply in the period stretching from Thanksgiving until Martin Luther King Jr. day in mid-January because of holidays and poor weather. As a result, economists are cautious about how they judge the weekly report until after the holiday season is over.

The better labor-market indicator is the more comprehensive monthly jobs report. The economy has added an average of 239,000 jobs a month so far this year and the U.S. is on track to add the most positions since 1999, reflecting an upward trend that dovetails with the decline in initial jobless claims.

The labor market still has plenty of room to improve, however. The Federal Reserve, for example, has resisted raising interest rates for the first time since 2006 because of excess “slack,” or the still-high number of people who cannot find full-time jobs more than five years after the recovery began. Some 18 million Americans still want a job or can only find part-time work.

In the week ended Dec. 6, meanwhile, continuing claims sank by 147,000 to a seasonally adjusted 2.37 million, keeping them close to a 14-year low. Continuing claims reflect the number of people who already receive regular unemployment benefits.