US companies AT&T and DuPont said on Thursday that they would cut thousands of jobs, due to an economic downturn.

Dallas-based telecom operator AT&T  said it would cut 12,000 jobs, totaling 4 per cent of its workforce, while DuPont, a chemical company, said it would cut 2,500 jobs.

AT&T attributed the staff cuts to 'economic pressures, a changing business mix and a more streamlined organizational structure' in a news release.

The company also said it would take a charge of $600 million in the fourth quarter to make severance payments. It said it would reduce its 2009 capital expenditures from its 2008 levels.

DuPont chief executive Charles Holliday said his company was making the cuts 'in response to current market challenges' and to increase the company's competitiveness in the coming year.

DuPont says the cuts will be mostly in its businesses that serve the US and European auto and construction markets, plus 4,000 contractors.

Those announcements came as the Labor Department said the number of new claims for unemployment benefits fell unexpectedly last week to a seasonally adjusted 509,000, from an upwardly revised 530,000 the previous week.

But the number of people continuing to claim benefits reached a 26-year high 4.09 million, the most since December 1982, when the economy was in a steep recession.

DuPont said it expected a loss of 60 cents to 70 cents per share for the fourth quarter, including an 40-cent-per-share charge from the company's restructuring plan. Going forward, the company expects full-year earnings to be $2.25 to $2.75 per share in 2009.