NEW YORK – The U.S. dollar continued its struggle to rise above the widely watched 100-yen level against the Japanese currency on Thursday. The greenback (USDJPY) exchanged hands at Yen99.43 in recent trade, again running into resistance as it approached Yen100, a level around which it has hovered but has been unable to breach for four days. The dollar was Yen99.77 in late North American trade Wednesday. The dollar was trading at Yen93.03 at the close of North American trade on April 3, according to FactSet, just before the Bank of Japan announced its aggressive monetary easing plan that will attempt to rid the country of deflation. Since then, it has leapt about 6.9%. The pace of the yen's decline is of concern and could result in outright yen purchases by the BOJ if it continues, said Michael Woolfolk, global markets strategist at BNY Mellon Global Markets. "If we breach Yen100 in the near term and stay above Yen100, I would expect that there would be an increasing likelihood of BOJ intervention supported by the international community," said Woolfolk. The Nikkei Stock Average rose 2% on Thursday to its highest level since July 2008. That rise, coupled with stock gains in Europe, is important as the yen continues to respond to investors' appetite for riskier assets, Woolfolk said. Goldman Sachs said Thursday it has revised its 3-,6- and 12-month forecasts for dollar/yen to Yen102, Yen105 and Yen105, respectively. It is also projecting the dollar will trade at Yen110 at the end of 2014. The Australian currency attracted attention in Asian trade as the country's unemployment rate rose to its highest level in more than three years, pushing the Australian dollar to $1.0519 in the late afternoon in Asia. But the Aussie (AUDUSD) recouped those losses as North American markets opened, rising to $1.0564 in recent trade, compared with $1.0542 in North American trade Wednesday. The earlier drop in the currency, often considered a measure of investor appetite for risk, came after Australia's jobless rate jumped to 5.6% in March, disappointing analysts who had expected it to remain unchanged at the February level of 5.4%. The total number of jobs in the economy fell by 36,100, three times the expected figure. (Read more on the jobs data: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/australia-jobless-rate-shows-surprise-rise-2013-04-10.) "Looking through the monthly volatility in the jobs data the pattern appears to be that there is relatively soft overall jobs growth, which is insufficient to cover labor force growth," Commonwealth Bank economists led by Michael Workman wrote in a note to clients. They added, however, that the data was in line with the Reserve Bank of Australia's expectation for the labor market to weaken, and that they expected the central bank to keep the interest rates on hold over the rest of 2013. In the U.S., weekly jobless claims dropped more than expected to 346,000 for the week ended April 30, putting claims back on par with levels seen for most of the year. The ICE dollar index (DXY), a wider measure of the dollar against a basket of six major currencies, eased to 82.199 after the claims from 82.508. The WSJ dollar index , a rival gauge, edged down to 73.47 after the claims, versus 73.72. Among other major currencies, the euro (EURUSD) rose to $1.3111 as compared with $1.3062, while the British pound (GBPUSD) was slightly higher at $1.5382. Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires

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