NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Jobless claims rose in the United States last week, the government said Thursday, coming in higher than Wall Street forecasts.

The Labor Department said 378,000 people filed new claims for state unemployment benefits in the week ended Dec. 6, compared with a revised reading of 365,000 the prior week. Economists, on average, expected 359,000 new claims, according to Briefing.com.

On Wall Street, stocks edged higher after the report while Treasury bond prices fell after a separate report showing surprising strength in retail sales in November.

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Retail sales rose 0.9 percent to $322.4 billion last month, the Commerce Department reported, topping analysts' forecasts, as consumer spending rebounded from a slump in October.

While jobless claims have risen for two straight weeks, they have remained below 400,000, a level that most economists consider to be an indicator of an improving labor market.

The four-week moving average of new claims, which irons out the volatility of the weekly data, rose to 364,750 last week from a revised 362,500 in the prior week.

Continued claims, the number of people out of work for a week or more, rose 11,000 to 3.346 million for the week ended Nov. 29, the latest data available, from a revised 3.335 million the prior week.