WASHINGTON – Fewer Americans sought unemployment aid last week, reducing the average number of weekly applications last month to a five-year low. The drop shows that fewer layoffs are strengthening the job market.

The Labor Department said Thursday that applications fell 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 332,000. That reduced the four-week average to 346,750, the lowest since the week of March 8, 2008, three months after the Great Recession began.

The report “provides further evidence of a gradual strengthening in labor market conditions,” Paul Dales, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics, said in a note to clients.