Mubasher: US unemployment claims decreased less than forecasts during the week ended 7 April.

The number of people claiming benefits fell by 9,000 to 233,000 last week, data by the US labour department on Thursday showed.

Economists, polled by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), had expected a sharper decline towards 230,000 during the week.

Data also showed that continuing claims, which lasts for longer than a week, rose by 53,000 to around 1.87 million in the week ended 31 March.

By 01:53 pm GMT, the EUR/USD pair slipped by around 0.5% to $1.2307.