Investing.com - The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. last week rose unexpectedly, 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 February 28 increased by 7,000 to a seasonally adjusted 320,000 from the previous week’s total of 313,000.
Analysts had expected initial jobless claims to fall by 18,000 to 295,000 last week.
Continuing jobless claims in the week ended February 21 rose to 2.421 million from 2.404 million in the preceding week. Analysts had expected continuing claims to decline to 2.400 million.
The four-week moving average was 304,750, an increase of 10,250 from the previous week’s total of 294,500. 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 1.1063 from around 1.1061 ahead of the release of the data, while GBP/USD was at 1.5255 from 1.5254 earlier, while USD/JPY was at 120.30 from 120.34 earlier.
The US dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six major rivals, was at 96.15, compared to 96.16 ahead of the report.
Meanwhile, U.S. stock futures pointed to a modestly higher open. The Dow futures pointed to a gain of 0.3%, the S&P 500 futures rose 0.3%, while the Nasdaq 100 futures tacked on 0.3%.
Elsewhere, in the commodities market, gold futures traded at $1,203.50 a troy ounce, compared to $1,202.60 ahead of the data, while crude oil traded at $51.61 a barrel from $51.64 earlier.