New weekly jobless claims unexpectedly plunged to a new pandemic-era low.

The Department of Labor released its weekly report on new jobless claims on Thursday at 8:30 a.m. ET. Here were the main metrics from the report, compared to consensus data compiled by Bloomberg:

• Initial jobless claims, week ended April 17: 547,000 vs. 610,000 expected and a revised 586,000 during the prior week

• Continuing claims, week ended April 3: 3.674 million vs. 3.650 million expected and a revised 3.708 million during the prior week

Last week's new claims came as another welcome surprise after more than a year of elevated initial filings. At 547,000, new claims broke below the Great Recession-era high of 665,000 filed in March 2009 for a second straight week. And claims have dropped precipitously from their all-time high of 6.1 million from last spring.

"This is precisely the kind of surprise we like to see, unlike the drumbeat of negative shocks that we experienced a year ago at this time," Mark Hamrick, senior economist analyst at Bankrate, said in an email Thursday morning. "While a number of economic indicators have recently surprised in a positive way, the economy still requires substantial healing.”

But the labor market recovery has still been choppy, and the general downtrend in new jobless claims over the past several months has come with some bumps higher. Other reports have also underscored the stop-and-start nature of the rebound, with the Federal Reserve's latest Beige Book last week noting that many regions continued to experience labor shortages as well as hiring challenges over the past several weeks.

And even within the jobless claims report, some metrics have remained stubbornly elevated and pointed to persistently high levels of unemployment. More than 17 million Americans were still receiving unemployment benefits across all programs as of early April, for a slight increase from the previous week. That included more than 12.5 million Americans on the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, which each expire in September.

"The issue for the labor market, in our view, is at least partly related to ongoing health risks," Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist for High Frequency Economics, said in a note. "Even as states are lifting restrictions and the pace of vaccinations is picking up, workers are still likely hesitant to return to work, especially in contact-intensive industries."

"Overall, the labor market will see a significant rebound going forward," she added. "However, there are a lot of moving parts that will play a role in how sustainable and complete the recovery will be."