Jobless claims edge higher
No coronavirus relief in sight
New jobless claims in Michigan rose last week while new claims nationally fell.
There were 16,073 new jobless claims in Michigan for the week ending Oct. 24, an increase over the previous week and an indication that layoffs are continuing in the absence of further pandemic assistance from
Congress in the days ahead of the presidential election.
Michigan’s new jobless claims for the previous week were also revised upward, according to the most recent numbers released Thursday by the U.S. Labor Department.
Nationally, 751,000 new jobless claims were filed, about 40,000 less than analysts had anticipated and below the million mark for the ninth week.
The unemployment numbers indicate that some of the unemployed have gone back to work, but many people have exhausted state unemployment benefits and are relying on extended federal unemployment benefits after more than seven months of coronavirus-induced joblessness.
Continuing jobless claims lag reporting of initial jobless claims by a week.
In Michigan, continuing claims fell to 213,811 for the week ending Oct. 17, and the state’s unemployment rate dipped to 4.97%.
The Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency launched a dashboard Thursday that shows how many people have filed unemployment claims since the pandemic began in March, and how much has been paid out.
The state has processed 2,907,537 unique jobless claims so far, indicating that 67% of the state’s la
bor force has has experienced at least short-term layoffs.
To date, $25.5 billion in claims has been paid out.
The state’s dashboard shows that 287,400 people aren’t eligible to file unemployment claims.