The U.S. Labor Department released its jobless claims figures on Thursday. The number of initial jobless claims in the week ending June 11 in the U.S. increased by 13,000 to 277,000 from 264,000 in the previous week. Analysts had expected jobless claims to rise to 270,000.

Jobless claims remained below 300,000 the 67th straight week. This threshold is associated with the strengthening of the labour market.

Continuing jobless claims climbed by 45,000 to 2,157,000 in the week ended June 04.