Thursday brought cheerier signs for the U.S. labour market, as the government found the number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits fell last week.
The U.S. Labor Department reported that initial jobless claims decreased by 5,000 to a seasonally-adjusted 271,000 in the week ended Nov. 14. Economists looked for 270,000 new claims last week.
Jobless claims for the prior week came in at 276,000.
Meanwhile, the four-week moving average of claims, a longer-term index which evens out weekly ups and downs, moved up by 3,000 to 270,750 last week.
Claims have been in the slide since 2009 and hit a four-decade low in July. In recent weeks new claims had increased slightly but remain at very low levels.
Employers stateside added a seasonally-adjusted 271,000 jobs in October, a solid acceleration over the prior two months.
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