While still high, unemployment claims are on the decline.

When the pandemic first began ramping up in the United States, millions of Americans suddenly found themselves out of work. In mid-March to early-April 2020, nearly 7 million initial applications for unemployment benefits were filed. As we’ve adjusted to the pandemic lifestyle and aid has arrived in the form of financial assistance and vaccines, those numbers have been gradually dropping. While thousands of Americans are still filing for unemployment, the US labor market has hit something of a positive milestone.

According to the latest report from the US Department of Labor, first-time claims for unemployment benefits during the week ending in March 20 fell to 684,000. This is the first time since the pandemic began that the numbers dropped below 700,000, and a major drop from the previous week’s count of 781,000. The job market also managed to beat expectations from Dow Jones analysts, who were predicting initial filings to land around 735,000.

Continuing claims for unemployment, while still in the millions, also saw a modest drop to 3.87 million. Again, while this is still a lot, it is a vast improvement over the early pandemic high of nearly 25 million. Since that high point, when many workers were laid off and jobs were axed from companies, at least 13 million of those lost jobs are now back on the market.

Despite the positive direction, the US is still very much in the pandemic era, which is why the Federal Reserve intends to keep pursuing aggressive growth policies until things have definitively calmed down.

“We will very, very gradually over time and with great transparency, when the economy has all but fully recovered, we will be pulling back the support that we provided during emergency times,” Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell told NPR.