Investing.com - The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. last week fell to the lowest level since 2000, fuelling optimism 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 April 25 fell by 34,000 to a seasonally adjusted 262,000 from the previous week’s total of 296,000.
Analysts had expected initial jobless claims to fall by 6,000 to 290,000 last week.
Continuing jobless claims in the week ended April 18 fell to 2.253 million from 2.327 million in the preceding week. Analysts had expected continuing claims to fall to 2.300 million.
The four-week moving average was 283,750, a decline of 1,250 from the previous week’s total of 285,000. The monthly average is seen as a more accurate gauge of labor trends because it reduces volatility in the week-to-week data.
EUR/USD was trading at 1.1179 from around 1.1202 ahead of the release of the data, GBP/USD was at 1.5404 from 1.5422 earlier, while USD/JPY was at 119.06 from 118.84 earlier.
The US dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six major rivals, was at 94.98, compared to 94.80 ahead of the report.
Meanwhile, U.S. stock futures pointed to a lower open. The Dow futures pointed to a drop of 0.15%, the S&P 500 futures shed 0.15%, while the Nasdaq 100 futures slumped 0.4%.
Elsewhere, in the commodities market, gold futures traded at $1,202.60 a troy ounce, compared to $1,205.20 ahead of the data, while crude oil traded at $59.07 a barrel from $59.05 earlier.