After reporting a notable increase in first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits in the previous week, the Labor Department released a report on Thursday showing that initial jobless claims pulled back by more than expected in the week ended July 13th.

The report said initial jobless claim fell to 334,000, a decrease of 24,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 358,000. Economists had been expecting jobless claims to dip to 345,000 from the 360,000 originally reported for the previous week.