Initial jobless claims down, but more layoffs on horizon

Airlines, Disney and Allstate plan to cut thousands of jobs

Initial claims for unemployment insurance benefits fell in the week ending Sept. 26, the U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday, falling by 36,000 from the previous week to 837,000.

In New York, initial claims fell by 3,222 to 66,568.

Initial pandemic unemployment assistance claims in New

York, for individuals not covered by traditional unemployment insurance, fell by 7,875 to 33,141, according to U.S. Labor Department figures.

Claims in New York filed under the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, which adds 13 weeks to traditional unemployment benefits, totaled 161,243 in the week ending Sept. 12, up from 96,852 the week ending Sept. 5. Those reports lag initial claims reports by two weeks.

With several major layoffs in the pipeline — airlines plan to cut tens of thousands of jobs if Congress doesn’t provide additional assistance, while Disney said this week it is cutting 28,000 jobs and Allstate said it would cut 3,800 jobs — economists aren’t expecting the employment picture to brighten anytime soon.

“In recent days, there’s been word of combined thousands of job cuts beyond some of the usual suspects, in terms of sectors where job loss has been common,” said Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst for Bankrate. “These companies include Disney, Allstate and Goldman Sachs, even as the airlines stand to shed thousands of workers if aid is not forthcoming. This underscores the significant risk in the coming weeks and months of more widely shared pain resulting from pandemic related constraints.”

In New York, two sectors — accommodation and food services, and retail trade — continue to see thousand of job losses. In the week ending Sept. 26, 4,603 workers filed initial claims for unemployment in accommodation and food services, while 4,160 retail workers also filed claims.

In each case the numbers, while lower than the week before, remained roughly five times higher than the levels from a year earlier.

The largest number of workers filing initial claims, however, fell into a category labeled unclassified.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics will issue its September jobs report Friday morning.