Investing.com - The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. fell more than expected last week, holding at levels indicating that the labor market is strengthening, 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 August 22 declined by 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 271,000 from the previous week’s total of 277,000. Analysts had expected initial jobless claims to fall by 3,000 to 274,000 last week.
First-time jobless claims have held below the 300,000-level for 25 consecutive weeks, which is usually associated with a firming labor market.
Continuing jobless claims in the week ended August 15 rose to 2.269 million from 2.256 million in the preceding week. Analysts had expected continuing claims to decline to 2.250 million.
The four-week moving average was 272,500, an increase of 1,000 from the previous week’s total of 271,500. 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 1.1252 from around 1.1286 ahead of the release of the data, GBP/USD was at 1.5431 from 1.5443 earlier, while USD/JPY was at 120.46 from 120.20 earlier.
The US dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six major rivals, was at 95.68, compared to 95.47 ahead of the report.
Meanwhile, U.S. stock futures pointed to a higher open. The Dow futures pointed to a gain of 1%, the S&P 500 futures rose 0.95%, while the Nasdaq 100 futures jumped 1.1%.
Elsewhere, in the commodities market, gold futures traded at $1,121.00 a troy ounce, compared to $1,122.50 ahead of the data, while crude oil traded at $40.05 a barrel from $40.14 earlier.