The U.S. Labor Department released its jobless claims figures on Thursday. The number of initial jobless claims in the week ending August 29 in the U.S. rose by 12,000 to 282,000 from 270,000 in the previous week. The previous week's figure was revised down from 271,000.

Analysts had expected the number of initial jobless claims to be 275,000.

Jobless claims remained below 300,000 the 18th straight week. This threshold is associated with the strengthening of the labour market.

Continuing jobless claims declined by 9,000 to 2,257,000 in the week ended August 22.