The US four-week moving average of initial claims for unemployment insurance rose to 209,500 last week, up 2,500 from the previous week’s unaverage, the US Department of Labor reported.

The four-week moving average smooths the volatility of the week-to-week numbers. Total initial claims for unemployment insurance for the week ended Oct. 6 rose to 214,000, up 7,000 from the previous week’s unrevised level.

Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had forecast initial claims falling to 205,000. The after-effects from Hurricane Florence could still be in play, but raw or unadjusted claims figures gave little hint as to why layoffs rose in early October.

“Businesses are still finding difficulty in filling positions, evidenced by near-record job openings and responses to the [National Federation of Independent Business] small business survey, so there is no reason to expect that layoffs will accelerate any time soon,” chief financial economist Ward McCarthy of fixed-income services at Jefferies LLC to MarketWatch.