Last week, the number of Americans submitting first-time unemployment claims fell to its lowest level since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the Labor Department, 310,000 Americans applied for first-time unemployment benefits in the week ending September 4, down 35,000 from the previous week. Since March 14, 2020, this was the lowest reading. Refinitiv polled analysts, who predicted 335,000 new filings.

For the week ending Aug. 28, continuing claims fell by 22,000 to 2.783 million, which was lower than the 2.744 million expected by experts. The reading from the previous week was revised up 57,000 to 2.805 million.

Unemployment benefits were obtained by around 11.93 million Americans last week, a reduction of over 255,700 from the previous week. During the same week in 2020, more than 30.4 million Americans applied for benefits.

“With another significant move lower, new jobless claims have reached a fresh pandemic era low, seemingly on the verge of finally pushing below the 300,000 level,” analysts at Bankrate said.

In the coming weeks, analysts will be closely watching the statistics since the $300 per week in supplementary unemployment benefits ended earlier this month, which is expected to help fill some of the record 10.9 million job vacancies.

Analysts expect the coming weeks to produce “noisy data” because of the impact of the end of federal unemployment befits, Hurricane Ida, and the continued surge in new COVID-19 cases.