U.S. initial jobless claims fall at start of December, underlying health of labor market intact

Initial jobless claims in the U.S. dropped at the start of December. For the week ended 2 December, the jobless claims fell to 236,000, consistent with Barclays projection of 235k. The four-week moving average remained stable at 242k. Meanwhile, continuing claims for the week ended 25 November dropped to 1.91 million from 1.96 million.

The insured jobless rate remained stable at 1.4 percent. Overall, the report released today contains little news, as distortions from the three large storms appear to have waned, while post-storm normalization appears to be complete.

Looking at the state level data, claims in the storm-affected states – Texas, Puerto Rico and Florida – are now greatly back to pre-storm levels. Overall, the initial jobless claims data hint that the underlying health of the labor market continues to be in place, stated Barclays in a research level.

At 17:00 GMT the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of US Dollar was neutral at 39.3575. For more details on FxWirePro's Currency Strength Index, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex

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