A job posting at a supermarket in Illinois, USA [AP=Yonhap News Archive]

The U.S. Department of Labor announced on the 21st (local time) that new unemployment claims for the past week (May 10-16) were 209,000, a decrease of 12,000 from the previous week.

This figure is lower than the expert forecast of 210,000 compiled by Dow Jones.

Claims for "continued unemployment benefits," filed by those unemployed for two or more weeks, rose by 6,000 to 1,782,000 in the week of May 3-9.

This suggests that the U.S. labor market continues to maintain a stable trend, even amidst heightened economic uncertainty due to the prolonged war in Iran and rising energy prices.

With such strong employment data persisting, expectations for an early cut in the Federal Reserve's (Fed) benchmark interest rate are weakening.