Forexpros – The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. last week fell unexpectedly, dropping to the lowest level in nearly four years, 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 January 13 fell by 50,000 to a seasonally adjusted 352,000 from 402,000 in the preceding week, whose figure was revised up from 399,000.
Analysts had expected U.S. jobless to fall by 17,000 to 385,000 last week.
Jobless claims have remained below 400,000, a level historically associated with an improving labor market, in ten of the past twelve weeks.
Continuing jobless claims in the week ended January 7 fell to 3.432 million, beating expectations for a decline to 3.590 million. Continuing claims for the previous week were revised up to 3.647 million from 3.628 million.
The average of new claims over the past four weeks decreased by 3,500 to 379,000. The monthly average is seen as a more accurate gauge of labor trends because it reduces volatility in the week-to-week data.
Following the release of the data, the U.S. dollar held on to losses against the euro, with EUR/USD gaining 0.38% to trade at 1.2913.
Meanwhile, U.S. stock future indices remained higher after the release of the data. The Dow Jones Industrial Average futures pointed to a gain of 0.2%, S&P 500 futures rose 0.35%, while the Nasdaq 100 futures pointed to a rise of 0.45%.
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