Washington, Sep 23 (IANS): Initial jobless claims in the US rose for the first week after dropping for five straight weeks, the Labour Department reported.

In the week ending September 17, the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits increased by 5,000 to reach 213,000, according to a report released on Thursday by the Department's Bureau of Labour Statistics.

The four-week moving average for initial jobless claims, a method to iron out data volatility, decreased by 6,000 to 216,750, Xinhua news agency quoted the report as saying.

It further revealed that the number of people continuing to collect regular state unemployment benefits, which was reported with a one-week lag, decreased by 22,000 to 1.38 million during the week ending September 10.

The number of job openings in the US rose to 11.2 million by the end of July, as the imbalances between labour market supply and demand remained, the Department had reported earlier.

With the increase in job openings, there were nearly two job positions per available worker.

As the Federal Reserve ramps up its fight against surging inflation, the strong job market may be about to take a turn for the worse.

The Federal Reserve's latest quarterly economic projections showed that Fed officials' median projection of unemployment is 4.4 per cent by end of 2023, an upward revision of 0.5 percentage point from June.

It also showed that the median projection of GDP growth this year is 0.2 per cent, a further downgrade from the 1.7 per cent projected in June, indicating less confidence in the economic outlook.