US: 1.54 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week

• Weekly Initial Jobless Claims in the US edged lower to 1.54 million.
• US Dollar Index clings to recovery gains near 96.40 after the data.  

There were 1,542,000 Initial Claims for unemployment benefits in the US during the week ending June 6th, the data published by the US Department of Labor (DOL) revealed on Thursday.

This reading followed last week's print of 1,897,000 and came in slightly better than the market expectation of 1,550,000.

Market reaction

The US Dollar Index largely ignored this data and was last seen gaining 0.47% on the day at 96.41.

Additional takeaways

"The 4-week moving average was 2,002,000, a decrease of 286,250 from the previous week's revised average."

"The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 14.4% for the week ending May 30, a decrease
of 0.2 percentage point from the previous week's revised rate."

"The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending May 30 was 20,929,000, a decrease of 339,000 from the previous week's revised level."