With the more closely watched monthly jobs report looming, the Labor Department released a report on Thursday unexpectedly showing a modest decrease in first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits in the week ended August 27th.
The report showed initial jobless claims edged down to 232,000, a decrease of 5,000 from the previous week's revised level of 237,000.
The dip came as a surprise to economists, who had expected jobless claims to inch up to 248,000 from the 243,000 originally reported for the previous week.
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Forex News
June 19, 2026 16:46 ET Major central banks continued to dominate the economic news flow this week too, led by the Federal Reserve, as they announced their latest policy decisions. The Federal Reserve policy session was in focus as it was the first to be led by the new chief Kevin Warsh. In Europe, central banks of the U.K. and Switzerland announced their rate decisions. In Asia, the Bank of Japan drew attention for its policy moves, while data out of China threw some light on the state of the economy.