The U.S. Labor Department released its jobless claims figures on Thursday. The number of initial jobless claims in the week ending August 22 in the U.S. fell by 6,000 to 271,000 from 277,000 in the previous week.
Analysts had expected the number of initial jobless claims to be 274,000.
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 13,000 to 2,269,000 in the week ended August 15.