The data from the Labor Department revealed on Thursday the number of applications for unemployment drop last week from the previous three weeks, but still remained huge, showing that the coronavirus' damage to the U.S. labor market remains profound.

According to the report, the initial claims for unemployment benefits totaled 4,427,000 for the week ended April 18. This brings the number of job losses over the past five weeks to 26.45 million. That number exceeds the 22.44 million jobs gained since November 2009, when the U.S. economy began to add jobs back after the Great Recession.

Economists had expected 4,200,000 new claims last week.

Claims for the prior week were revised downwardly to 5,237,000 from the initial estimate of 5,245,000.

Meanwhile, the four-week moving average of claims jumped to 5,786,500 from a revised 5,506,500 in the previous week, the highest level on the record.