Investing.com - The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. last week fell less 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 January 2 decreased by 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 294,000 from the previous week’s total of 298,000.
Analysts had expected initial jobless claims to decline by 8,000 to 290,000 last week.
Despite the higher than expected reading, the number of Americans applying for new jobless benefits has held below the 300,000-level for 16 out of the past 17 weeks, indicating the labor market recovery is gaining momentum.
Continuing jobless claims in the week ended December 26 rose to 2.452 million from 2.351 million in the preceding week. Analysts had expected continuing claims to increase to 2.368 million.
The four-week moving average was 290,500, a decrease of 250 from the previous week’s total of 290,750. 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 1.1774 from around 1.1772 ahead of the release of the data, while GBP/USD was at 1.5072 from 1.5068 earlier, while USD/JPY was at 119.72 from 119.69 earlier.
The US dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six major rivals, was at 92.61, compared to 92.63 ahead of the report.
Meanwhile, U.S. stock futures pointed to a higher open. The Dow futures pointed to a gain of 0.9% at the open, the S&P 500 futures rose 0.8%, while the Nasdaq 100 futures tacked on 0.8%.
Elsewhere, in the commodities market, gold futures traded at $1,211.40 a troy ounce, compared to $1,209.70 ahead of the data, while crude oil traded at $48.88 a barrel from $48.99 earlier.
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U.S. initial jobless claims fall by 4,000 last week to 294,000
Published 01/08/2015, 08:33 AM
U.S. initial jobless claims fall by 4,000 last week to 294,000
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