The U.S. dollar slightly rose in late trading on Thursday, as job-related data showed a tightening U.S. labor market, relieving concerns over a slowdown in U.S. economic growth.

The number of initial jobless claims fell last week to a nearly 49-year low, reaching a seasonally adjusted 206,000 for the week ended Dec. 8, according to statistics released by the U.S. Labor department on Thursday.

Competing the dollar' s strengthen, the euro extended gains after The European Central Bank (ECB) announced on Thursday wind up its massive, four-year-long quantitative easing (QE) at the end of December.

The core of the QE, introduced in March 2015, was an asset purchasing program of more than 2.6 trillion euros (2.9 trillion U.S. dollars), which was aimed at rescuing the euro zone economy in the wake of the damaging European debt crisis.

ECB's benchmark interest rates would also be kept unchanged and the decision to halt QE was depicted as "continuing confidence and increasing caution," said ECB President Mario Draghi in a press conference.

The British pound also recovered as British Prime Minister Teresa May Thursday flew to Brussels to court support. May has just survived her own party's no-confidence vote on Wednesday, which allowed her to continue discussing specific terms of her planned Brexit deal with the EU and to later get it through a divided British parliament.

In late New York trading, the euro increased to 1.1366 dollars from 1.1365 dollars in the previous session, and the British pound increased to 1.2660 dollars from 1.2632 U.S. dollars in the previous session. The Australian dollar was up to 0.7227 dollar from 0.7219 dollar.

The U.S. dollar bought 113.60 Japanese yen, higher than 113.21 Japanese yen of the previous session. The U.S. dollar rose to 0.9933 Swiss franc from 0.9928 Swiss franc, and it increased to 1.3355 Canadian dollars from 1.3350 Canadian dollars. Enditem