The US labour market continues to show signs of weakness with another set of figures out today showing that new jobless claims came in higher than expected last week. The number of US citizens filing new claims for unemployment benefit rose to 439,000 in the week ended July 5, from 434,000 the previous week, according to a report from the US Labour Department. Economists, on average, expected 420,000 new claims where a level above 400,000 indicates a stagnant labour market.
The four-week moving average of new claims, which smoothes out the weekly fluctuations, rose slightly to 426,750 from 425,750 the prior week. Continued claims, the number of people out of work for a week or more, climbed to 3.81 million for the week ended June 28 from a revised 3.73 million the week before. //www.fxcentre.com