US: 2.43 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week

There were 2,438,000 Initial Claims for unemployment benefits in the US during the week ending May 16th, the data published by the US Department of Labor (DOL) revealed on Thursday. This reading came in slightly worse than the market expectation of 2.4 million.

Key takeaways

"The 4-week moving average was 3,042,000, a decrease of 501,000 from the previous week's revised average."

"The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 17.2% for the week ending May 9."

"The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending May 9 was 25,073,000, an increase of 2,525,000 from the previous week's revised level." 

Market reaction

The US Dollar Index largely ignored this data and was last seen down 0.11% on the day at 99.05.