The U.S. Labor Department released its jobless claims figures on Thursday. The number of initial jobless claims in the week ending May 02 in the U.S. climbed by 3,000 to 265,000 from 262,000 in the previous week, beating expectations for a rise by 18,000.

The previous week's reading was the lowest reading since April 2000.

Initial jobless claims remained below 300,000 the ninth straight week. That could be interpreted as the strengthening of the labour market.