The data from the Labor Department revealed on Thursday the number of applications for unemployment hit their lowest level of the COVID-19 pandemic area last week.

According to the report, the initial claims for unemployment benefits totaled 1,186,000 for the week ended August 1. That brought the number of job losses over the past twenty weeks (since the U.S. went into coronavirus lockdown in mid-March) to more than 55.3 million.

Economists had expected 1,415,000 new claims last week.

Claims for the prior week were revised upwardly to 1,435,000 from the initial estimate of 1,434,000.

Meanwhile, the four-week moving average of claims fell to 1,337,750 from an upwardly revised 1,368,750 in the previous week.

Continuing claims decreased to 16,107,000 million from a downwardly revised 16,951,000 in the previous week.