The U.S. Labor Department released its jobless claims figures on Thursday. The number of initial jobless claims in the week ending February 06 in the U.S. declined by 16,000 to 269,000 from 285,000 in the previous week.

Analysts had expected jobless claims to fall to 281,000.

Jobless claims remained below 300,000 the 49th straight week. This threshold is associated with the strengthening of the labour market.

Continuing jobless claims declined by 21,000 to 2,239,000 in the week ended January 30.