Jobless pace slows
Claims drop, though still high, as businesses reopen
WASHINGTON — Nearly 1.9 million people applied for U.S. unemployment benefits last week, evidence that while many employers are still cutting jobs, the gradual reopening of businesses has slowed the pace of layoffs.
In Massachusetts, 27,034 individuals filed an initial claim for standard unemployment insurance from May 24 to May 30. That number marked a decrease of 10,584 over the previous week.
The total number of people who are receiving jobless aid nationwide meanwhile rose slightly to 21.5 million, down from a peak of nearly 25 million two weeks ago but still at a historically high level.
The numbers show that scattered rehiring is offsetting only some of the ongoing layoffs with the economy mired in a recession.
Thursday’s latest weekly number from the Labor Department is still more than double the record high that prevailed before the viral outbreak.
In Massachusetts, since March 15, a total of 924,239 initial claims have been filed for unemployment benefits.
For the week ending May 30, there were 575,862 continued unemployment claims filed, a decrease of 12,187 or 2.1% over the previous week. This marks the first decrease in continued claims since the beginning of the pandemic surge.
Gig workers and the self employed continue to take advantage of benefits available under the federal CARES Act. There were 54,281, Pandemic Unemployment Assistance initial claims filed for the week ending May 30, 93,313 less than the previous week. Since April 20, 2020, 573,077 claimants have filed for that form of assistance in the Bay State.
The number of people who applied for benefits last week marked the ninth straight decline nationally since applications spiked in mid-March. The job market meltdown that was triggered by the coronavirus may have bottomed out as more companies call at least some of their former employees back to work.
Economists said they were disappointed, though, that the number of first-time applications for jobless aid and the total number of people receiving benefits remain so high.
“While the drop in new claims is welcome news and more evidence that the worst of the job losses are behind us, the recovery in the labor market is expected to be painfully slow,” said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. “We look for a two-phase recovery, with an initial burst in rehiring followed by a much slower retracement of job losses.”