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 February 21 increased by 31,000 to a seasonally adjusted 313,000 from the previous week’s revised total of 282,000.
Analysts had expected initial jobless claims to rise by 8,000 to 290,000 last week.
Continuing jobless claims in the week ended February 14 fell to 2.401 million from 2.422 million in the preceding week. Analysts had expected continuing claims to decline to 2.390 million.
The four-week moving average was 294,500, an increase of 11,500 from the previous week’s total of 282,000. 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 1.1305 from around 1.1318 ahead of the release of the data, while GBP/USD was at 1.5484 from 1.5489 earlier, while USD/JPY was at 119.03 from 118.85 earlier.
The US dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six major rivals, was at 94.57, compared to 94.52 ahead of the report.
Meanwhile, U.S. stock futures pointed to a modestly higher open. The Dow futures pointed to a gain of 0.1%, the S&P 500 futures rose 0.15%, while the Nasdaq 100 futures tacked on 0.15%.
Elsewhere, in the commodities market, gold futures traded at $1,216.60 a troy ounce, compared to $1,218.00 ahead of the data, while crude oil traded at $50.17 a barrel from $50.02 earlier.