Pasadena, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/24/2011 -- The latest unemployment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that jobless claims have fallen by 37,000 for the week ending January 15.

The initial jobless claims were 404,000 in the second week of January, representing a drop of 37,000 from the previous week. The initial jobless claims for the week ending January 8 were 445,000. Most economists thought that it showed high unemployment was not likely to come down anytime soon.

But the latest jobless claims figure show that the economy is doing better than expected. The total number of Americans getting jobless benefits was 3.9 million in the week ending January 8, down by 26,000. Continuing claims for the week ending in January 15 will be reported next week.

Hound, a job search engine, has been able to gather over 150,000 job postings from employer websites in the last seven days. Hound CEO A. Harrison Barnes says that most of the job openings are in healthcare, hospitality, and information technology. Other categories with considerable openings include accounting and financial services. The states with the highest number of jobs were California, Texas, and New York.