The U.S. Labor Department released its jobless claims figures on Thursday. The number of initial jobless claims in the week ending January 16 in the U.S. rose by 10,000 to 293,000 from 283,000 in the previous week. The previous week's figure was revised down from 284,000.

Analysts had expected jobless claims to fall to 278,000.

Jobless claims remained below 300,000 the 46th straight week. This threshold is associated with the strengthening of the labour market.

Continuing jobless claims declined by 56,000 to 2,208,000 in the week ended January 09.