The U.S. Labor Department released its jobless claims figures on Thursday. The number of initial jobless claims in the week ending January 02 in the U.S. declined by 10,000 to 277,000 from 287,000 in the previous week. Analysts had expected jobless claims to fall to 275,000.

Jobless claims remained below 300,000 the 44th straight week. This threshold is associated with the strengthening of the labour market.

Continuing jobless claims increased by 25,000 to 2,230,000 in the week ended December 26.