South Dakota is on a roll when it comes to a reduction of unemployment claims. According to the latest jobs report from the South Dakota Department of Labor, both first-time and continued unemployment claims fell.

Officials say that unemployment numbers will most likely continue to fluctuate from week to week.

731 workers filed initial claims for the week ending August 1, a drop of 77 from the prior report, Dakota News Now reports. This week's amount is thousands lower than the number of claims filed during the hight of pandemic layoffs but still higher than the per-pandemic range around 200 to 300 weekly claims.

Continued claims were also down in the state, coming in at 15,643 for the week ending July 18, sheading 957 from the prior week. This is a sign of either people getting back to work or becoming ineligible for a particular reason.

According to Dakota News Now, the Department of Labor has paid a $267 million in benefits since March 16.

On the national front, Fox Business reports that jobless claims fell to the lowest level since the pandemic layoffs began and were lower than analyst expectations.

About 1.18 million workers filed an initial claim last week according to the Labor Department, beating the estimates of 1.435 million. More than 55 million workers have filed an initial claim since government-mandated business shutdowns began in March.

According to Fox Business, this is the 20th consecutive week with jobless claims exceeding 1 million. Before the pandemic, the record high was 695,000 set in 1982.

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