There were 244,000 initial jobless claims in the week ending July 9, the weekly data published by the US Department of Labor (DOL) showed on Thursday. This print followed the previous week's print of 235,000 and came in worse than the market expectation of 235,000.
Further details of the publication revealed that the advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 0.9% and the 4-week moving average was 235,750, an increase of 3,250 from the previous week's average.
"The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending July 2 was 1,331,000, a decrease of 41,000 from the previous week's revised level," the DOL said in its publication.
The dollar preserves its strength after this report with the US Dollar Index rising 0.65% on the day at 108.70.