CT unemployment claims steady

After more than a month of steady-as-she-goes hiring in the Land of Steady Habits, Connecticut’s jobs picture took a slight turn for the worse in mid-February — bucking regional and national trends.

On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Labor reported nearly 6,900 Connecticut workers filed initial claims for unemployment compensation the second week of February, an increase of 780 claims from the week before and reversing four successive weeks of ebbing totals. Among Northeast states, only Maine and New Hampshire absorbed increased initial claims that week, and only in the dozens in each.

Nationally, first-time claims dropped by 111,000 last week as 730,000 Americans filed initial claims. That’s the lowest number of first-time claims since 716,000 filed the week ending Nov. 28.

The Connecticut blip occurred despite President Joe Biden’s administration kicking off the newest round of the Paycheck Protection Program, through which nearly 22,700 small businesses in Connecticut have landed $1.9 billion in loans that are forgiven if they do not lay off workers.

Separately Thursday, the U.S. Department of Labor issued formal notification to state labor agencies that it will expand the pool of people eligible for aid under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, to include those who decline job offers out of fear of contracting COVID-19. Those denied aid previously will be able to apply for retroactive benefits.

The initial claims totals for the first half of February mark the first time since Black Friday that DOL has reported two straight weeks of fewer than 7,000 claims in Connecticut. But people continue to seek assistance at levels far above normal for a typical February, and more than 210,000 Connecticut residents were getting aid from federal unemployment programs entering this month.

As of December, there were less than 50,000 open jobs to go around statewide according to the most recent count by The Conference Board, which maintains an index of online job ads sourced both from websites like Indeed.com and from the career pages of large employers. Since then, employers have been posting new ads at a rate of just over 4,000 weekly on average, taking others offline as they fill them.

While retail openings popped in the second week of February, the sector still remains well below the hiring activity of a month earlier. Retailers actively adding people in Connecticut run the gamut from Dollar General (which listed 300 openings as of Thursday) to Apple (70 jobs this month) to GameStop (40 new openings itself, after generating headlines for the past month for a stock tug-ofwar between Main Street investors and hedge funds).

Last week, the Connecticut Department of Labor authorized American Jobs Centers across the state to begin scheduling in-person appointments for people seeking assistance finding work, at offices in Bridgeport, New Haven, Hartford, Hamden, Waterbury and Montville. Information is online at portal.ct.gov/ajc or www.workforcealliance.biz for the New Haven office. Includes prior reporting by Emilie Munson.