The U.S. Labor Department released its jobless claims figures on Thursday. The number of initial jobless claims in the week ending May 23 in the U.S. climbed by 7,000 to 282,000 from 275,000 in the previous week, missing expectations for a decline by 5,000.

The previous week's reading was revised down from 274,000.

Jobless claims remained below 300,000. This threshold is associated with the strengthening of the labour market.

Continuing jobless claims climbed by 10,000 to 2,222,000 in the week ended May 16.