Following the substantial increase seen in the previous week, first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits unexpectedly saw some further upside in the week ended December 14th. The Labor Department released a report on Thursday showing that initial jobless claims climbed to 379,000, an increase of 10,000 from the previous week's figure of 369,000. The modest increase came as a surprise to economists, who had expected jobless claims to drop to 337,000 from the 368,000 originally reported for the previous week.