U.S. initial claims for unemployment insurance fell for the third consecutive week to 411,000, substantially below the peak of 492,000 at the end of March. However, continuing claims rose to a new cyclical high while the insured rate of unemployment rose to 3%.

The number of American workers receiving state unemployment benefits rose by 61,000 to a 19-year high of 3.8 million in recent weeks, the U.S. Labor Department said Thursday.

RBC Financial Group economists says these numbers are likely to encourage steady interest rates in the United States.

“The recent round of initial claims reports would suggest that U.S. labour market conditions continue to remain soft even though the economy has started to recover from the recession. Continued reports such as this could allow the Federal Open Market Committee to sit tight on short-term interest rates and postpone the first rate hike until the August meeting,” it says.

In Canada, jobs data is due tomorrow. “In anticipation of tomorrow’s all-important Canadian employment numbers, markets will try to glean as much information as they can from today’s release of the April help-wanted index,” says RBC.

The index rose 0.2% in April from March. “This was the third consecutive small month-to-month increase following 15 months of declines. Compared to April 2001, however, firms hiring intentions continue to remain weak with the index down 21.4% over the 12-month period,” says RBC.

“Looking ahead to tomorrow’s April labour numbers, market expectations are for a more mild 13,000 increase in employment compared to March’s stellar 88,000 performance, while the unemployment rate is projected to edge down several ticks to 7.5%.”