The U.S. Labor Department released its jobless claims figures on Thursday. The number of initial jobless claims in the week ending April 09 in the U.S. decreased by 13,000 to 253,000 from 266,000 in the previous week. The previous week's figure was revised down from 267,000.

Analysts had expected jobless claims to rise to 270,000.

Jobless claims remained below 300,000 the 58th straight week. This threshold is associated with the strengthening of the labour market.

Continuing jobless claims decreased by 18,000 to 2,171,000 in the week ended April 02.