The number of Americans filing for unemployment fell last week to near a pandemic-era low in a sign of ongoing labor market recovery. Initial filings for unemployment insurance, a proxy for layoffs, came in at 375,000 for the week ending Aug. 7, a drop of 12,000 over the previous week’s revised level of 387,000, the Labor Department said in a release (pdf). Initial claims hit a pandemic-era low of 368,000 in the week ending July 10 before ticking back up. While the drop in jobless claims reflects the dynamics of a rebounding economy, the number remains well above the pre-pandemic weekly average of around 220,000, suggesting the employment recovery still has a ways to go. “Welcome improvement is seen with the new jobless claims numbers, essentially in line with expectations,” Bankrate senior economic analyst Mark Hamrick said in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times. Economists polled by Reuters predicted …