Investing.com - The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. rose unexpectedly last week, but held near the lowest level since November 1973, 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.