The number of American workers filing weekly jobless claims—a proxy for layoffs—have declined for the third straight week, pointing to further firming of an already tight labor market. First-time filings for unemployment insurance came in at 223,000 for the week ending Feb. 5, down 16,000 from the prior week’s revised level of 239,000, the Labor Department said in a Feb. 10 report (pdf). “The state of the job market remains rock solid based on new jobless claims as well as other key indicators,” Bankrate Senior Economic Analyst Mark Hamrick told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement. Despite a winter spike in Omicron cases that sent a ripple across the economy, there was a burst of hiring in January, with U.S. employers adding 467,000 jobs, topping estimates of 150,000. “The recently released January jobs report included more jobs creation than forecast, accompanied by significant upward revisions in payrolls for the …