The U.S. Labor Department released its jobless claims figures on Thursday. The number of initial jobless claims in the week ending August 01 in the U.S. rose by 3,000 to 270,000 from 267,000 in the previous week.
Analysts had expected the number of initial jobless claims to be 273,000.
Jobless claims remained below 300,000 the 22th straight week. This threshold is associated with the strengthening of the labour market.
Continuing jobless claims declined by 14,000 to 2,255,000 in the week ended July 25.