Unemployment claims keep coming, 2.4M file
Illinois claims hold steady, but they were joined last week by 75k gig workers; state unemployment rate up to 16.4%
A shuttered restaurant is boarded up on Chicago’s North Side. (One Illinois/Ted Cox)
By Ted Cox
Another 2.4 million workers filed for unemployment across the nation last week, making more than 38 million who’ve lost their jobs over the nine weeks since the economic collapse stemming from the coronavirus pandemic took hold.
In its weekly unemployment report issued Thursday, the U.S. Labor Department also revised the previous week’s figure down from 3 million to 2.7 million. The 2.4 million reported last week nationally was the lowest number since 3.3 million filed in mid-March, shattering the previous one-week record of 695,000 set during the 1982 Reagan recession.
Even so, that means every week for nine weeks new jobless claims have been multiples of that previous record. Along the way, a new one-week high of 6.9 million was established the last full week of March.
According to the Labor Department, Illinois claims remained almost exactly the same week to week, with 72,816 filing last week, after 72,671 the week before. But they were joined by 74,515 so-called gig workers, who were able to file for expanded benefits last week for the first time in Illinois under the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program.
The Illinois Department of Employment Security released April jobless figures Thursday, finding the state suffered a record one-month increase in the unemployment rate to 16.4 percent, up 12.2 percentage points in a single month from March. The state lost a record 762,200 non-farm jobs for the month. Year to year, non-farm payrolls were down 823,000 jobs. For the month, the leisure and hospitality lost more than 100,000 jobs, followed by trade, transportation and utilities with 37,700 lost jobs and professional and business services with 36,800 lost positions.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on our economy, as has been the case in states across the nation,” said Deputy Governor Dan Hynes in a statement accompanying an IDES news release. “As we move to safely reopen much of our economy, we are focused on ensuring working families and small business have the resources they need to recover, and we urge the federal government to step up and provide additional relief.”
IDES reported that over 1 million workers were unemployed, also a record.
The Labor Department reported: “The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 17.2 percent for the week ending May 9, an increase of 1.7 percentage points from the previous week's revised rate. The previous week's rate was revised down by 0.2 from 15.7 to 15.5 percent.”