Investing.com - The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. last week rose more than expected, dampening 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 August 30 increased by 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 302,000 from the previous week’s total of 298,000.
Analysts had expected jobless claims to rise by 2,000 to 300,000 last week.
Continuing jobless claims in the week ended August 23 declined to 2.464 million from 2.528 million in the preceding week. Analysts had expected continuing claims to fall to 2.510 million.
The four-week moving average was 302,750, an increase of 3,000 from the previous week’s total of 299,750. 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 1.3017 from around 1.3039 ahead of the release of the data, while GBP/USD was at 1.6420 from 1.6426 earlier.
Meanwhile, U.S. stock index futures remained higher. The Dow 30 indicated a gain of 0.2% at the open, the S&P 500 pointed to a rise of 0.3%, while the Nasdaq 100 indicated an increase of 0.25%.