The U.S. Labor Department released its jobless claims figures on Thursday. The number of initial jobless claims in the week ending October 03 in the U.S. declined by 13,000 to 263,000 from 276,000 in the previous week. The previous week's figure was revised down 277,000.

Analysts had expected the initial jobless claims to increase to 274,000.

Jobless claims remained below 300,000 the 31th straight week. This threshold is associated with the strengthening of the labour market.

Continuing jobless claims increased by 9,000 to 2,204,000 in the week ended September 26.