The data from the Labor Department revealed on Thursday the number of applications for unemployment was lower than forecast last week as workers continued to returned gradually to their jobs in the wake of surging coroanvirus cases.

According to the report, the initial claims for unemployment benefits totaled 1,314,000 for the week ended July 4. That brought the number of job losses over the past sixteen weeks (since the U.S. went into coronavirus lockdown in mid-March) to nearly 50million.

Economists had expected 1,375,000 new claims last week.

Claims for the prior week were revised downwardly to 1,413,000 from the initial estimate of 1,427,000.

Meanwhile, the four-week moving average of claims fell to 1,437,250 from a downwardly revised 1,500,250 in the previous week.

Continuing claims decreased to 18,062,000 million from a downwardly revised 18,760,000 in the previous week.