Investing.com - The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. last week fell more than expected, boosting optimism over the health of the economy and supporting the case for a U.S. interest rate hike this year, 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 11 fell by 15,000 to a seasonally adjusted 281,000 from the previous week’s total of 296,000. Analysts had expected initial jobless claims to fall by 10,000 to 285,000 last week.
First-time jobless claims have held below the 300,000-level for 19 consecutive weeks, which is usually associated with a firming labor market.
Continuing jobless claims in the week ended July 4 declined to 2.215 million from 2.327 million in the preceding week. Analysts had expected continuing claims to fall to 2.295 million.
The four-week moving average was 282,250, an increase of 3,000 from the previous week’s total of 279,250. 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 1.0872 from around 1.0874 ahead of the release of the data, GBP/USD was at 1.5565 from 1.5564 earlier, while USD/JPY was at 124.17 from 124.16 earlier.
The US dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six major rivals, was at 97.85, compared to 97.81 ahead of the report.
Meanwhile, U.S. stock futures pointed to a higher open. The Dow futures pointed to a gain of 0.25%, the S&P 500 futures tacked on 0.4%, while the Nasdaq 100 futures advanced 0.4%.
Elsewhere, in the commodities market, gold futures traded at $1,142.40 a troy ounce, compared to $1,141.80 ahead of the data, while crude oil traded at $51.64 a barrel from $51.66 earlier.