Pasadena, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/04/2011 -- The initial jobless claims filed for the week ending December 25, 2010 fell to its lowest level since July 2008.

There were 388,000 new unemployment benefits filings for the week ending December 25, 2010 compared to 422,000 filings for the week ending December 18, 2010. This is the first time that the initial filings fell below 400,000 in 2010. Most economists believe that the initial jobless claims have to be below 400,000 to mean an improvement in the job market.

But not everybody is impressed by this fall in the filings. Jim Baird, Chief Investment Strategist for Plante Moran Financial Advisors says that the decreased filings could simply mean that some laid off people did not file because of the holidays.

In total number of filings, New Jersey was first with 5,235 claims for the week ending December 18. California saw the biggest fall in filings with 7,656 fewer initial claims that week compared to the week before.

With the end of the holiday season, several temporary workers are going to be let go. But such a drastic fall in initial claims at the end of the year suggests that the economy is doing better than what many analysts had predicted. Hound CEO A. Harrison Barnes says that with small businesses back in full swing in the next two weeks, there should be more hiring in January. Hound is a job search engine and it has been able to find around 70,000 jobs postings on employer websites in the last seven days.