Jobless claims increased by 31,000 to 313,000 in the week ended Feb. 21 from a revised 282,000 in the prior period, a Labor Department report showed Thursday in Washington. The median forecast of 49 economists surveyed by Bloomberg saw claims rising to 290,000.

Looking past the weekly data, which can often be volatile, job-market fundamentals have improved as payroll growth accelerates and Americans stream into the labor force looking for work. Continued improvement will be needed to generate faster wage growth and support consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of the economy.

The data probably say "more about the difficulties that you have seasonally adjusting weekly series when you have floating holidays" such as Presidents' Day on Feb. 16 this year, said Brian Jones, a senior U.S. economist at Societe Generale in New York, whose forecast for 315,000 claims was the closest in the Bloomberg survey. "The total number of people collecting benefits continues to move lower."