The major U.S. indexes slid Thursday, with the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping more than 1,000 points for the second time this week, as an unexpected decline in jobless claims renewed concerns that labor-market strength would push up interest rates.

The Dow closed 1,032 points, or 4.2 percent lower in New York, while the broader S&P 500 dropped 3.8 percent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq slid 3.9 percent.

Initial claims for unemployment benefits in the week through Feb. 3 dropped 4 percent to 221,000, lower than the estimate of 235,000 from British lender Barclays Plc, while the four-week average dipped to 224,500. That‘s the lowest since 1973, the Department of Labor said Thursday.

The market’s reaction mirrored its response to broader employment data released on Friday, which sparked worries that strong employment and faster economic growth would prompt the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates more quickly.

The central bank has increased short-term rates just five times since they were cut to nearly zero during the 2008 financial crisis, taking them to a range of 1.25 to 1.5 percent.

That benefits banks, which usually pass increases on to borrowers more quickly than depositors, but it’s unwelcome news for both consumers with high credit-card debt and heavily-leveraged corporations.

The U.S. economy’s fundamental strength, however, bodes well for markets, investors say.

“When the market declines sharply, everyone naturally wonders 'What’s wrong?' Nothing is wrong economically," said Greg McBride, chief financial analyst for Bankrate.com. The economy is doing better now than it has any time in the past decade."

As for President Trump — who frequently cited meteoric gains that drove the Dow Jones 25 percent higher in 2017 as proof his policies were working — he considers the February selloff to be simply poor strategy. As of Thursday, all three of the major indexes were 9 percent below their January close.

“Big mistake, and we have so much good (great) news about the economy,” Trump wrote in a post on Twitter.