New claims for state unemployment insurance in Maine have dipped below 2,000 for the first time in months.

The Maine Department of Labor recorded about 1,700 initial claims for state unemployment insurance for the week that ended Feb. 27. The number hadn’t been below 2,000 since November.

The labor department said it’s also continuing to investigate unemployment imposter fraud. The department said it cancelled more than 800 initial claims for the week that ended Feb. 27.

The department said it’s also beefing up its security measures to protect beneficiaries from fraudulent email “phishing” scams.

The unemployment rate for December, the most recent month for which statistics are available, was 5%. That’s less than half what the rate was in April 2020, but nearly twice the December 2019 rate.