Investing.com - The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. last week fell in line with expectations, underlining 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 November 29 decreased by 17,000 to a seasonally adjusted 297,000 from the previous week’s revised total of 314,000.
The number of Americans applying for new jobless benefits has held below the 300,000-level for 11 out of the past 12 weeks, indicating the labor market recovery is losing momentum.
Continuing jobless claims in the week ended November 22 rose to 2.362 million from 2.323 million in the preceding week. Analysts had expected continuing claims to fall to 2.318 million.
The four-week moving average was 299,000, an increase of 4,750 from the previous week’s total of 294,250. 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 1.2325 from around 1.2316 ahead of the release of the data, while GBP/USD was at 1.5669 from 1.5651 earlier, while USD/JPY was at 119.91 from 119.93 earlier.
The US dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six major rivals, was at 88.94, compared to 88.85 ahead of the report.
Meanwhile, U.S. stock futures pointed to a higher open. The Dow futures pointed to a gain of 0.1% at the open, the S&P 500 futures rose 0.1%, while the Nasdaq 100 futures tacked on 0.1%.
Elsewhere, in the commodities market, gold futures traded at $1,208.60 a troy ounce, compared to $1,208.90 ahead of the data, while crude oil traded at $66.87 a barrel from $66.94 earlier.