The U.S. Labor Department released its jobless claims figures on Thursday. The number of initial jobless claims in the week ending September 12 in the U.S. declined by 11,000 to 264,000 from 275,000 in the previous week. Analysts had expected the initial jobless claims to remain unchanged at 275,000.

Jobless claims remained below 300,000 the 28th straight week. This threshold is associated with the strengthening of the labour market.

Continuing jobless claims decreased by 26,000 to 2,237,000 in the week ended September 5.