The U.S. Labor Department released its jobless claims figures on Thursday. The number of initial jobless claims in the week ending October 17 in the U.S. rose by 3,000 to 259,000 from 256,000 in the previous week. The previous week's figure was revised up from 255,000.

Analysts had expected the initial jobless claims to increase to 265,000.

Jobless claims remained below 300,000 the 33th straight week. This threshold is associated with the strengthening of the labour market.

Continuing jobless claims increased by 6,000 to 2,170,000 in the week ended October 10.