(The Center Square) – An additional 860,000 workers filed new claims for unemployment last week, down 33,000 from the prior week as the overall unemployment rate continues to fall.

According to U.S. Department of Labor data, continuing claims, which count those who have filed at least two weeks in a row, fell to about 12.6 million, a drop of 916,000 from the previous week.

In late March, when government restrictions shutting down businesses deemed nonessential to help slow the spread of COVD-19 were first put into place, weekly unemployment claims peaked at more than 6 million.

The 860,000 new claims for the week ending Sept. 12 mark the third consecutive week that new claims fell below the million mark.

From March through early August, new weekly claims were in the millions. But in four of the last six weeks, the number fell below a million, signalling a slow economic recovery.

"The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 8.6 percent for the week ending September 5, a decrease of 0.7 percentage point from the previous week's revised rate," the labor department reported. "The previous week's rate was revised up by 0.1 from 9.2 to 9.3 percent."

California once again led the nation in the number of new claims filed at 230,225.