Maine jobless claims drop to pre-pandemic levels

(The Center Square) – New claims for unemployment benefits in Maine dropped last week, reaching a new pandemic-era low, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s weekly report.

There were 862 new applications for state unemployment benefits filed for the week that ended Nov. 13, the federal agency reported on Thursday. That’s 138 fewer than the previous week and follows several weeks of slightly increasing jobless claims.

Continuing state unemployment claims – which lag behind a week – totaled 4,743 in the week ending Nov. 6. That’s 145 fewer than the previous week.

Meanwhile new claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a federal program for jobless workers who don’t qualify for state benefits, continued to decline last week. There were 24 new PUA claims, three fewer than the previous week, according to the report.

PUA and other federal unemployment programs created by Congress in response to the pandemic – including a $300 per week enhanced benefit – expired on Sept. 4 but jobless workers are still filing claims for the benefits.

The Labor Department data only shows first-time unemployment claims that were filed for the previous week, not those that were successfully processed.

Overall, the number of unemployment claims has fallen to pre-pandemic levels in recent weeks.

Maine has distributed more than $2.49 billion in state and federal jobless benefits to nearly 400,000 jobless workers during the pandemic, according to state data.

The state’s unemployment rate remained largely unchanged at 4.8% in September, according to the Maine Department of Labor.

There were 611,900 seasonally adjusted nonfarm jobs in September, mostly in public and private education services, the agency said.

That’s 3,000 fewer nonfarm jobs than were reported in August, and 6,500 fewer jobs than in July, according to the report.

Employers are still struggling to find workers amid a prolonged hiring crunch that economists say is holding back growth of the pandemic-battered economy.

Nationally, initial filings for unemployment insurance fell to another pandemic-era low last week, with the number of recently laid off workers falling to pre-virus levels.

There were 268,000 new jobless claims filed during the week that ended Nov. 13, a decrease of 1,000 from the previous week, according to the U.S. Labor Department. That’s the lowest level for initial claims since March 14, 2020, when it was 225,000 the agency said Thursday.

Continuing unemployment claims, which lag behind a week, dropped by 129,000 to about 2 million nationally for the week that ended Nov. 6, the agency said.

Overall, more than 3.1 million Americans were still receiving state or federal jobless benefits in the week ending Oct. 30, according to the weekly report.

The labor market remains tight nationally. An estimated 4.4 million workers – about 3% of the workforce – quit their jobs in September, as job openings hovered near record levels, according to a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report.

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