The U.S. Labor Department released its jobless claims figures on Thursday. The number of initial jobless claims in the week ending October 10 in the U.S. declined by 7,000 to 255,000 from 262,000 in the previous week. The previous week's figure was revised down from 263,000.

Analysts had expected the initial jobless claims to increase to 270,000.

Jobless claims remained below 300,000 the 32th straight week. This threshold is associated with the strengthening of the labour market.

Continuing jobless claims decreased by 50,000 to 2,158,000 in the week ended October 03. It was the lowest level since November 2000.