Jobless claims — What to know in markets Thursday

Heidi Chung
·Reporter
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Investors and traders will return to the markets on Thursday following the New Year’s Day holiday. And it’s gearing up to be a rather quiet day with limited economic data releases and no major earnings announcements scheduled.

Ahead of the market open, the U.S. Labor Department will release initial jobless claims data for the week ended December 28. Economists polled by Bloomberg expect the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits to hold steady from the prior week at 222,000.

Initial jobless claims rose to 252,000 during the first week of December and was the highest reading since September 2017. Since then, there have been fewer Americans filing for unemployment benefits and thus has helped further ignite investor confidence in the current state of the labor market.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - AUGUST 15: Job seekers fill out applications as they wait in line to enter a job fair at a new Target retail store on August 15, 2013 in San Francisco, California. Hundreds of job seekers applied for jobs during a job fair to staff a new Target City store. According to a report by the Labor Department, the number of people seeking first time unemployment benefits fell to the lowest level since 2007 with initial jobless claims decreasing by 15,000 to 320,000. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Job seekers fill out applications as they wait in line to enter a job fair at a new Target retail store on August 15, 2013 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

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Heidi Chung is a reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter: @heidi_chung.

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