The United States Labor Department reported on Thursday that claims for unemployment benefits in the country rose a significant 9,000 over the previous week to a seasonally adjusted 269,000 for the week of November 28. The federal government considers any number below the 300,000 threshold to be indicative of a strong economy and with a labor market that is gaining strength.

The Labor Department doesn’t see much more opportunity for the numbers to decline any further as it believes that the job market is stabilizing and gaining strength, according to Reuters. The prior week’s tabulation for new unemployment benefits claims wasn’t revised by the Labor Department. The Labor Department reported that these numbers have not been seen since 1973 and that it was the 39th week in a row that initial jobless claims remained below the 300,000 threshold.

The government explained that companies are not wanting to let workers go because of a tighter labor market while other analysts believe that American companies continue to run on such skeleton crews that there is almost no one left to be laid off. The drama continues at America’s central bank, the Federal Reserve, with the hand wringing expected to continue until almost the end of the month with regard to it raising its benchmark overnight interest rate.

Some government analysts are hoping that Americans will be showing enough confidence in their job security as well as with the economy in general to spend lavishly this holiday season. A successful retail season, they reason, would provide a huge boost to the uncertainty of the overall economy.

The number of Americans currently receiving unemployment benefits rose last week by another 6,000 to come in at 2.16 million for the week ending November 21. The new figures for how many jobs were added to the economy comes out on Friday. Economists and analysts are looking toward there being almost 100,000 fewer jobs added to the economy in November than were added in October.