The US four-week moving average of initial claims for unemployment insurance rose to 258,000 last week, up 2,000 from the previous week’s unrevised average, according to seasonally adjusted numbers released today by the US Department of Labor.

The four-week moving average decreases the volatility of the weekly numbers. Total initial claims for unemployment insurance for the week ended April 30 were 274,000, up 17,000 from the previous week’s unrevised level.

Despite the increase, this marks 61 consecutive weeks of initial claims below 300,000, the longest streak since 1973.

No special factors affected this week’s initial claims.

Bloomberg reported applications for US unemployment benefits increased to a five-week high, a sign that progress in the strongest part of the economy may be moderating. The jump in initial claims was the largest since January 2015 and more than the median forecast in its survey of economists, which called for initial claims to rise to 260,000.

“If they trend higher for a few weeks, then we start to worry, but we’ve been steadily lower,” Gennadiy Goldberg, a US strategist at TD Securities LLC in New York, told Bloomberg. Goldberg projected an increase to 271,000. “The US economy may not be growing at 3%, but we’re continuing to muddle along, and that’s still creating a demand for labor.”