Investing.com - The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. last week fell more than expected, boosting optimism over the health 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 May 30 declined by 8,000 to a seasonally adjusted 276,000 from the previous week’s revised total of 284,000. Analysts had expected initial jobless claims to fall by 5,000 to 279,000 last week.
Continuing jobless claims in the week ended May 23 fell to 2.196 million from 2.226 million in the preceding week. Analysts had expected continuing claims to decline to 2.208 million.
The four-week moving average was 274,750, an increase of 4,750 from the previous week’s total of 272,000. 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 1.1313 from around 1.1322 ahead of the release of the data, GBP/USD was at 1.5385 from 1.5386 earlier, while USD/JPY was at 124.27 from 124.19 earlier.
The US dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six major rivals, was at 95.09, compared to 95.03 ahead of the report.
Meanwhile, U.S. stock futures pointed to a lower open. The Dow futures pointed to a drop of 0.45%, the S&P 500 futures shed 0.5%, while the Nasdaq 100 futures slumped 0.65%.
Elsewhere, in the commodities market, gold futures traded at $1,178.00 a troy ounce, compared to $1,179.00 ahead of the data, while crude oil traded at $59.48 a barrel from $59.63 earlier.