New jobless claims in Maine edge up slightly

(The Center Square) – New claims for unemployment benefits in Maine went up slightly last week, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s weekly report, in a sign that the state’s economic recovery is tightening.

There were 667 new applications for state unemployment benefits filed for the week that ended Oct. 23 – 76 more than the previous week, the federal agency reported on Thursday.

Meanwhile, there were 61 new claims for federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a federal program created to provide benefits for those who didn’t qualify for state unemployment. That’s 18 more 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.

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

Continuing state unemployment claims – which lag behind a week – totaled 4,426 in the week ending Oct. 16. That’s 410 fewer than the preceding week.

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.

That’s down from a high of 9.1% last April but still higher than the state’s average 3% unemployment rate throughout 2019.

Still, employers in Maine and elsewhere are struggling to find workers amid a prolonged hiring crunch that economists say is holding back growth of the pandemic-battered economy.

Nationally, first-time unemployment claims also declined last week with many businesses rehiring workers for the busy holiday season.

There were 281,000 new jobless claims filed during the week that ended Oct. 23, a decrease of 10,000 from the previous week, according to the U.S. Labor Department. That’s the lowest level for initial claims since March 2020, the agency said.

Continuing unemployment claims, which lag behind a week, dropped by 237,000 to more than 2.24 million nationally for the week that ended Oct. 16, officials said.

More than 2.8 million Americans were still receiving state or federal jobless benefits in the week ending Oct. 9, the agency reported. That’s 448,386 fewer than the preceding week.

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