First-time unemployment claims down again in Maine
(The Center Square) – First-time unemployment claims in Maine pulled back further last week, as the state’s pandemic-ravaged labor market continues to recover.
At least 2,027 new claims were filed for the week that ended Feb. 6 – down by 686 from the previous week, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s weekly report.
Another 265 new claims were filed for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a federally backed program which covers workers ineligible for regular unemployment benefits. That’s an decrease of 222 claims from the previous week.
Meanwhile, 17,518 continuing claims for state unemployment benefits – which are considered a barometer of the unemployment situation – were filed in the week ending Jan. 30, a decline of 643 over the previous week.
Maine has paid out more than $1.8 billion in federal and state unemployment benefits since mid-March, when the COVID-19 outbreak began.
The state’s jobless rate held steady at about 5% in December, according to figures released by the Maine Department of Labor.
Nationally, about 793,000 new jobless claims were filed last week, a drop of about 19,000 claims from the previous week, according to the Labor Department.
Continuing claims dropped by 145,000 to about 4.5 million nationally for the week that ended Jan. 30, the labor department said.
Despite the improving labor market, more than 20.4 million Americans were still receiving state or federal unemployment benefits in the week that ended Jan. 23.
The U.S. unemployment rate is currently 6.3%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, down from a peak of 14.8% in March 2020.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said this week that about 4 million people who are out of work have stopped looking for employment, meaning they aren’t counted as jobless. If they were, the national unemployment rate would be closer to 10%.
“We are still very far from a strong labor market whose benefits are broadly shared,” Powell said in a virtual speech on Wednesday. “The pandemic has led to the largest 12-month decline in labor force participation since at least 1948.”
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