WASHINGTON, July 30 (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits increased less than expected last week, suggesting that labor market conditions remained stable.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 9,000 to a seasonally adjusted 197,000 for the week ended July 25, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 200,000 claims for the latest week.

The increase partially unwound the prior week's decline, which had pushed claims to the lowest level of claims since late 1969. Claims tend to be volatile in July when motor vehicle manufacturers typically idle plants for annual maintenance and retooling. 

General Motors this year kept most of its assembly plants running, while Ford Motor Company canceled its traditional shutdowns for its truck plants. This could have thrown off the model that the government uses to strip out seasonal fluctuations from the claims data. 

Economists said the labor market remained in a "slow hire, slow fire" mode. The Federal Reserve on Wednesday left its benchmark overnight interest rate in a 3.50%-3.75% range. Three members of the U.S. central bank's policy-setting committee dissented. They "preferred" a quarter-percentage-point hike.

The number of people receiving unemployment benefits after an initial week of aid, a proxy for hiring, fell 7,000 to a seasonally adjusted 1.782 million during the week ended July 18, the claims report showed. The so-called continuing claims covered the period during which the government surveyed households for July's unemployment rate.

There is an upside risk to the unemployment rate rising this month. A Conference Board survey on Tuesday showed the share of consumers viewing jobs as "plentiful" dropped in July to the lowest level since February 2021. The unemployment rate dropped to 4.2% in June from 4.3% in May, mainly because of people leaving the labor force.