Investing.com - The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. last week fell to the lowest level in seven weeks, easing concerns over the strength of the labor market, official data showed on Thursday.
In a report, the U.S. Department of Labor said the number of individuals filing for initial jobless benefits in the week ending July 12 declined by 3,000 to a seasonally adjusted 302,000 from the previous week’s total of 305,000.
Analysts had expected jobless claims to rise by 5,000 to 310,000 last week.
Continuing jobless claims in the week ended July 5 fell to 2.507 million from 2.586 million in the preceding week. Analysts had expected continuing claims to decline to 2.575 million.
The four-week moving average was 309,000, a decrease of 3,000 from the previous week’s total of 312,000. The monthly average is seen as a more accurate gauge of labor trends because it reduces volatility in the week-to-week data.
Following the release of the data, the U.S. dollar held on to losses against the euro, with EUR/USD easing up 0.04% to trade at 1.3531, compared to 1.3526 ahead of the data.
Meanwhile, the outlook for U.S. equity markets was mildly lower. The Dow pointed to a loss of 0.25% at the open, the S&P 500 indicated a decline of 0.4%, while the Nasdaq 100 signaled a fall of 0.45%.