The data from the Labor Department revealed on Thursday the number of applications for unemployment fell below 1 million for the first time since March 21 last week, signaling that the U.S. labor market is continuing its recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the report, the initial claims for unemployment benefits totaled 963,000 for the week ended August 8. That brought the number of job losses over the past twenty-one weeks (since the U.S. went into coronavirus lockdown in mid-March) to near 56.3 million.

Economists had expected 1,120,000 new claims last week.

Claims for the prior week were revised upwardly to 1,191,000 from the initial estimate of 1,186,000.

Meanwhile, the four-week moving average of claims fell to 1,252,750 from an upwardly revised 1,339,000 in the previous week.

Continuing claims decreased to 15,486,000 million from a downwardly revised 16,090,000 in the previous week.