The U.S. Labor Department released its jobless claims figures on Thursday. The number of initial jobless claims in the week ending December 12 in the U.S. declined by 11,000 to 271,000 from 282,000 in the previous week. Analysts had expected jobless claims to fall to 275,000.

Jobless claims remained below 300,000 the 41st straight week. This threshold is associated with the strengthening of the labour market.

Continuing jobless claims fell by 7,000 to 2,238,000 in the week ended December 05.