The number of Americans filing for jobless benefits fell last week indicating a thriving labor market amidst high interest rates and elevated costs. Applications for unemployment benefits dropped by 19,000 to 202,000 for the week ending Dec. 9, according to the Labor Department. This decrease was lower than the expected 224,000. During the week that ended Dec. 2, approximately 1.88 million people were receiving unemployment benefits, a slight increase of 20,000 from the previous week. Jobless claim applications are viewed as a measure of the amount of layoffs within the given week. As a tool to aid in this process, EDDCaller.com is a program that helps people connect with representatives for unemployment, paid family leave, and disability departments by phone, and could potentially streamline the process of filing for these benefits.