The U.S. Labor Department released its jobless claims figures on Thursday. The number of initial jobless claims in the week ending June 27 in the U.S. increased by 10,000 to 281,000 from 271,000 in the previous week.
Analysts had expected the number of initial jobless claims to be 270,000.
Jobless claims remained below 300,000 the 17th straight week. This threshold is associated with the strengthening of the labour market.
Continuing jobless claims rose by 15,000 to 2,264,000 in the week ended June 20.