The U.S. Labor Department released its jobless claims figures on Thursday. The number of initial jobless claims in the week ending December 05 in the U.S. rose by 13,000 to 282,000 from 269,000 in the previous week. Analysts had expected jobless claims to remain unchanged at 269,000.

Jobless claims remained below 300,000 the 40th straight week. This threshold is associated with the strengthening of the labour market.

Continuing jobless claims increased by 82,000 to 2,243,000 in the week ended November 28.