NEW YORK, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- U.S. stocks moved cautiously up Thursday on falling oil prices and jobless claims.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 5.11 or 0.05 percent to 10,834.30 in late-morning trading. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.92 or 0.04 percenr to 2,177.92, and the Standard & Poor's 500 rose 1.33 or 0.11 percent to 1,214.78.

Oil fell to less than $43 per barrel, and the Labor Department said initial jobless claims fell by 5,000 to 326,000 in the week ended Dec. 25, better than forecasts of a drop of 1,000, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The 10-year Treasury note added 5/32, or $1.56 cents for each $1,000 invested, for a 4.26 percent yield.

The dollar fell to 103.145 yen from 103.89, and the euro rose to $1.3626 from $1.3601.

Tokyo's Nikkei 225, open only a half day, rose 107.20 points or 0.9 percent to close at 11,488.76.

Jobless claims fall

WASHINGTON, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- The U.S. Labor Department said Thursday the number of workers filing first-time applications for unemployment benefits declined last week.

Labor said initial jobless claims, after seasonal adjustments, fell 5,000 to 326,000 in the week that ended last Saturday.

As a result, the four-week average dropped 6,000 to 333,500. Economists say a weekly average below 350,000 typically indicates an improving job market.

Economists on Wall Street had expected a drop in initial claims last week of 1,000.

Labor said the number of workers filing continuing claims for unemployment benefits rose by 29,000 to 2.75 million in the week that ended Dec. 18, the latest week for which data are available.

The unemployment rate for workers with unemployment insurance held steady at 2.2 percent in that week.

US Airways donate labor to employer

PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- Several hundred US Airways workers began responding Thursday to management's plea to work unpaid this holiday weekend at Philadelphia's airport.

The airline issued the call Tuesday for employees to volunteer this weekend after an unusually high number of baggage handlers and flight attendants called in sick during the Christmas holiday, forcing nearly 400 flight cancellations and separating more than 10,000 pieces of luggage from travelers, the Washington Post (NYSE:WPO) reported Thursday.

Several hundred employees -- executives, clerical workers, pilots and flight attendants -- began arriving at US Airways' facilities at Philadelphia's airport to greet customers and help them.

Workers, apparently fearing economic damage from the customer anger over last week's sickout, will not be paid by their bankrupt employer if they are working on a day off.

Union officials denied that the sickouts were unusually high and blamed managers for cutting staffing levels to a point that there are inadequate standby workers.

McDonald's considers humane slaughter

OAK BROOK, Ill., Dec. 30 (UPI) -- Illinois-based fast-food giant McDonald's says it will study a less cruel method for slaughtering chickens approved by federal agriculture regulators.

The U.S. Agriculture Department has approved a slaughter technique considered more humane and pain-free called controlled-atmosphere killing that replaces oxygen with argon or nitrogen gas to kill the animals.

Currently most chickens are slaughtered when their throats are slit while hanging upside down from a moving conveyor line pulled through a vat of electrically charged scalding water.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, an animal rights group, had planned to introduce a proposal calling for the study at McDonald's stockholders meeting. McDonald's is the world's No. 2 buyer of chicken.

"We have been studying animal welfare issues since the middle 1990s," Bob Langert, McDonald's senior director of social responsibility told the Chicago Tribune. He said the company's animal welfare council recommended the alternative slaughter method be studied.