New calculations for jobless claims
New claims fall below 900,000 inweekly government report.
The number of laid-off Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell to a still-elevated 881,000 last week, evidence that the viral pandemic keeps forcing many businesses to slash jobs.
The latest figures, released Thursday by the Labor Department, suggest that nearly six months after the eruption of the coronavirus, the economy is still struggling to sustain a recovery and rebuild a job market thatwas devastated by the recession. In the previous week, more than 1 million had sought jobless aid.
All told, the government said that 13.3 million people are continuing to receive traditional jobless benefits, up from 1.7 million a year ago.
The new numbers were released a day ahead of today’s national employment report for August. The question economists and policy-makers are watching: Howdid the nation perform compared to the 10.2% unemployment rate achieved in July?
InMontgomery County, there were 803 new claims for benefits, on top of 16,370 claims continuing from previous weeks.
Butler County saw 470 firsttime claims, with 9,832 claims ongoing. Neighboring Warren County had 210 new claims, with
‘Although the update ... muddies the waters a bit, unemployment remains extremely elevated at the end of the summer.’
PNC Financial Chief Economist Gus Faucher
4,726 claims continuing.
And in Clark County, 154 new claims were matched with 3,173 continuing claims.
The drop in claims can be attributed to more than a slowly improving labor market, economistswarned Thursday. The Department of Labor said it was changing howit calculated claims numbers, using updated seasonally adjusted data that is said to be more in line with the unadjusted data.
The bottom line? Seasonal adjustments that had been used in recent monthswere prone to raise the actual number of claims, according to data-crunchers. And these claims remain historically elevated, as employers — and workers — continue to struggle to get through the pandemic.
“Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Department of Labor made a change in the way that UI (unemployment insurance) claims are seasonally adjusted starting with this release,” PNC Financial Chief Economist Gus Faucher said. “Thus, the level of claims in previous weeks may not match up with earlier releases.”
“Although the update to the seasonal adjustment methodology muddies the waters a bit, unemployment remains extremely elevated at the end of the summer,” he added.
Consider that the nation saw about 200,000 weekly claims as recently as February, before COVID-19 was first truly felt in the United States.
But still, claims are down significantly compared to the peak of some six million claims in late March.
Ohioans filed 18,719 initial jobless claims lastweek, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services said Thursday.
This was 255,496 fewer than — or less than 7% of — the peak earlier this year, Ohio said.
The number of initial jobless claims filed in Ohio over the last 24weeks (1,664,078) was more than the combined total of those filed during the last four years.