Investing.com - The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. last week rose less than expected, one week after falling to the lowest level since 2000, 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 2 rose by 3,000 to a seasonally adjusted 265,000 from the previous week’s total of 262,000.
Analysts had expected initial jobless claims to rise by 18,000 to 280,000 last week.
Continuing jobless claims in the week ended April 25 fell to 2.228 million from 2.256 million in the preceding week. Analysts had expected continuing claims to rise to 2.280 million.
The four-week moving average was 279,500, a decline of 4,250 from the previous week’s total of 283,750. 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 1.1267 from around 1.1288 ahead of the release of the data, GBP/USD was at 1.5212 from 1.5234 earlier, while USD/JPY was at 119.33 from 119.19 earlier.
The US dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six major rivals, was at 94.66, compared to 94.50 ahead of the report.
Meanwhile, U.S. stock futures pointed to a lower open. The Dow futures pointed to a drop of 0.1%, the S&P 500 futures shed 0.1%, while the Nasdaq 100 futures slumped 0.1%.
Elsewhere, in the commodities market, gold futures traded at $1,178.90 a troy ounce, compared to $1,183.80 ahead of the data, while crude oil traded at $60.92 a barrel from $61.07 earlier.