Breaking: Less than 1 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week

Eren Sengezer FXStreet

There were 963,000 Initial Claims for unemployment benefits in the US during the week ending August 8st, the data published by the US Department of Labor (DOL) revealed on Thursday. This figure came in better than the market expectation of 1.1 million and was the first reading below 1 million since mid-March.

Market reaction

The US Dollar Index edged slightly higher from daily lows after this data and was last seen losing 0.27% on the day at 93.17.

Additional takeaways

"The 4-week moving average was 1,252,750, a decrease of 86,250 from the previous week's revised average."

"The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 10.6% for the week ending August 1, a decrease of 0.4 percentage point from the previous week's unrevised rate."

"The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending August 1 was 15,486,000, a decrease of 604,000 from the previous week's revised level."

Author

Eren Sengezer

FXStreet

As an economist at heart, Eren Sengezer specializes in the assessment of the short-term and long-term impacts of macroeconomic data, central bank policies and political developments on financial assets.

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