Washington, Nov 6 (IANS): The number of initial jobless claims in the US totalled 751,000 last week, as the labour market continues to recover at a slowing pace due to the raging Covid-19 pandemic, the Labour Department reported.

In the week ending October 31, the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits slightly decreased by 7,000 from the previous week's upwardly revised level of 758,000, Xinhua news agency quoted a report released by the department's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on Thursday as saying.

It marks the third time the number has dipped below 800,000 in the past 33 weeks, and the 11th time it has come in below 1 million.

The claims report also showed that the number of people continuing to collect regular state unemployment benefits in the week ending October 24 decreased by 538,000 to 7.29 million.

Meanwhile, the recipients of Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, a federal program that provides an additional 13 weeks of benefits for those who exhaust regular state benefits, rose by 277,564 to reach 3.96 million in the week ending October 17.

The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs -- state and federal combined -- for the week ending October 17 declined by 1.15 million yet remained elevated at 21.5 million, indicating the pandemic's severe disruption to the labour market.