Investing.com - The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. last week rose to a four-week peak, dampening 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 23 rose by 7,000 to a seasonally adjusted 282,000 from the previous week’s total of 275,000.
Analysts had expected initial jobless claims to fall by 5,000 to 270,000 last week.
Continuing jobless claims in the week ended May 16 rose to 2.222 million from 2.211 million in the preceding week. Analysts had expected continuing claims to decline to 2.208 million.
The four-week moving average was 271,500, an increase of 5,000 from the previous week’s total of 266,500. 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 1.0913 from around 1.0899 ahead of the release of the data, GBP/USD was at 1.5295 from 1.5293 earlier, while USD/JPY was at 124.16 from 124.19 earlier.
The US dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six major rivals, was at 97.41, compared to 97.49 ahead of the report.
Meanwhile, U.S. stock futures pointed to a lower open. The Dow futures pointed to a drop of 0.3%, the S&P 500 futures shed 0.25%, while the Nasdaq 100 futures slumped 0.15%.
Elsewhere, in the commodities market, gold futures traded at $1,188.20 a troy ounce, compared to $1,187.00 ahead of the data, while crude oil traded at $57.56 a barrel from $57.47 earlier.