WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of newly laid off workers filing applications for unemployment benefits dropped last week, but not enough to indicate that strains on the labor market are easing.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that 356,000 claims for jobless benefits were filed last week, a decline of 22,000 from the previous week. The decline only erased a part of the huge jump of 72,000 in claims of the previous week.

The four-week average for jobless claims rose to 335,000, which was the highest level in a month.

A severe slowdown in economic growth that has raised concerns about a possible recession has begun to affect the labor market. The government reported last week that the economy shed 17,000 jobs in January, the first monthly job loss in more than four years.

Analysts said the performance of claims in the past two weeks showed that a surprising decline in claims from mid-December to mid-January was a statistical fluke caused by difficulty in adjusting the numbers around holidays and the start of the year. They predicted further increases in jobless claims in coming weeks as more companies are forced to lay off employees.

"In this environment, simply cutting back on hiring will not be enough for companies to maintain earnings

When couples first marry or have a child, the transition can be a bit bumpy. But once you adjust to your new routine, you often end up happier than you were before. The same goes for couples in retirement. The first months are often fraught with conflict.

A 2007 Fidelity study of 500 married couples ages 33 to 70 found that in more than 3 in 10 couples, husbands and wives gave completely different answers when asked at what age they would retire, what they expected their lifestyle to be, and whether they intended to work in retirement.

Some advance planning can help couples ease into retirement. Here are some topics for discussion.

Be prepared for staying home together

After years of spending mostly nights and weekends with your spouse, seeing him or her all day every day can be stressful. "If they are both retiring at the same time, they are faced with perhaps having to be in each other's faces, especially couples who have had a history of marital conflict," says Amy Pienta, a researcher at the University of Michigan.

Couples need to rework their old routines. "They have not been together much during the day, and so they have to renegotiate how much closeness or separateness they want in their activities," says