Investing.com - The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. last week rose unexpectedly to hit a ten-week high, 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 September 6 increased by 11,000 to a seasonally adjusted 315,000 from the previous week’s revised total of 304,000.
Analysts had expected jobless claims to fall by 4,000 to 300,000 last week.
Continuing jobless claims in the week ended August 30 rose to 2.487 million from 2.478 million in the preceding week. Analysts had expected continuing claims to increase to 2.480 million.
The four-week moving average was 304,000, an increase of 750 from the previous week’s total of 303,250. 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 1.2937 from around 1.2932 ahead of the release of the data, while GBP/USD was at 1.6262 from 1.6256 earlier.
Meanwhile, U.S. stock index futures remained lower. The Dow 30 indicated a loss of 0.35% at the open, the S&P 500 pointed to a decline of 0.35%, while the NASDAQ 100 indicated a drop of 0.25%.