Investing.com - The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. rose to a five-week high last week, but remained close to levels indicating that the labor market is strengthening, 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 15 rose by 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 277,000 from the previous week’s total of 273,000. Analysts had expected initial jobless claims to fall by 1,000 to 272,000 last week.
First-time jobless claims have held below the 300,000-level for 24 consecutive weeks, which is usually associated with a firming labor market.
Continuing jobless claims in the week ended August 8 declined to 2.254 million from 2.278 million in the preceding week. Analysts had expected continuing claims to decline to 2.265 million.
The four-week moving average was 271,500, an increase of 5,500 from the previous week’s total of 266,000. 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 1.1166 from around 1.1170 ahead of the release of the data, GBP/USD was at 1.5657 from 1.5659 earlier, while USD/JPY was at 123.91 from 123.87 earlier.
The US dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six major rivals, was at 96.25, compared to 96.22 ahead of the report.
Meanwhile, U.S. stock futures pointed to a lower open. The Dow futures pointed to a drop of 0.7%, the S&P 500 futures shed 0.65%, while the Nasdaq 100 futures slumped 0.65%.
Elsewhere, in the commodities market, gold futures traded at $1,141.10 a troy ounce, compared to $1,141.80 ahead of the data, while crude oil traded at $41.18 a barrel from $41.16 earlier.