Mississippi saw a slight increase in initial unemployment claims being filed the first week of December, according to information from the U.S. Department of Labor.

The department issued its Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims report Thursday showing 184,000 new claims were filed nationwide last week, which was a decrease of 43,000 from the previous week’s total. The 184,000 new claims are the lowest level of initial claims since Sept. 6, 1969, when 182,000 claims were filed.

In Mississippi, the state saw an increase of 167 new claims filed for the week ending Dec. 4 with a total of 1,273 claims. The previous week saw 1,106 new claims filed.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the state’s unemployment rate for October stood at 5.5%, ranking 38th in the nation. The organization reported the national unemployment rate stood at 4.6%, which was 0.2 percentage points lower than September and 2.3 percentage points lower than in October 2020.