The U.S. Labor Department released its jobless claims figures on Thursday. The number of initial jobless claims in the week ending June 06 in the U.S. climbed by 2,000 to 279,000 from 277,000 in the previous week. The previous week's reading was revised down from 276,000.

Analysts had expected the number of initial jobless claims to be 277,000.

Jobless claims remained below 300,000 the 14th straight week. This threshold is associated with the strengthening of the labour market.

Continuing jobless claims climbed by 61,000 to 2,265,000 in the week ended May 30.