Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Increase in jobless claims a sign of bumpy recovery
Despite reopening of businesses, state dealing with unemployment rise
A rise in unemployment claims in Florida presented another sign that the road to an economic recovery will remain a roller coaster ride for workers and businesses as they cope with COVID-19.
A steady flow of layoff notices are still being filed with the state despite the reopening of many businesses.
A variety of businesses sent workers to the sidelines this month despite the economy’s jump start in early May. Workers in hospitality, food service, entertainment, transportation and distribution all lost more jobs.
Last week, the W South Beach in Miami Beach said that effective June 20, it was renewing “temporary actions” started in March that included furloughs and hours reductions for 385 employees.
Other hotels are bringing back workers for the July 4 holiday including The Ritz Carlton Fort Lauderdale, which reopened this week. In March, the luxury hotel told the state it was furloughing 294 of 300 workers for as long as six months. It is unknown how many employees were recalled for the reopening. The hotel’s operations director did not respond to a phone message seeking comment.
William Luther, an economist at Florida Atlantic University, said it is important to keep in mind that the economy is in a “temporary shock” when it comes to producing a steady flow of goods and services for the consumer.
“How long that temporary shock is going to last is uncertain,” he said. “It depends not just on policies, but what we learn about mitigating the [coronavirus] spread until we get a vaccine.”
For the week ended June 20, state unemployment claims rose by 5,246 to 93,394.
The new figures buck a national trend of declines as the total claims filed around the
country stood at 1,480,000, a decrease of 60,000 from the previous week, the U.S. Department of Labor reported Thursday. In early June, Florida had been on a two-week roll of declining claims.
Economists said it is hard to evaluate where the labor market is headed based on a single week of jobless claims.
“It’s tough to put a lot of weight on one of these weekly data points,” said Sean Snaith, director of the Institute for Economic Forecasting at Central Florida University.
The claims increase could be a “temporary surge” in the Department of Economic Opportunity system “that has struggled to keep up to process claims,” Snaith said.
Some businesses and the people they employ are caught in a cycle where they’re welcoming customers one week only to be forced to close by the coronavirus, Snaith said.
“Anecdotally, we have seen businesses that are opened and an employee tests positive and they have to shut down again,” Snaith said. “Whether people are being laid off again, it’s not entirely clear unless the businesses are not planning to reopen any time soon.”
Whatever policymakers do to fight the virus, he said, they shouldn’t shut down the economy again to achieve a zero case scenario for COVID-19 infections. South Florida hotels and restaurants are operating at less than capacity as they reopen under government-imposed health restrictions.
“It’s important the public health goal posts don’t shift here,” he added. “Flattening the curve is the objective; no new cases is not.”
Florida’s unemployment rate for May jumped to 14.5%, with more than 1.4 million people out of work as 850,400 jobs were lost since the same month in 2019.
The jobless rate in Broward County soared to a shocking 16% in May from 14.9% in April. The rate in Palm Beach County was at 14.1%; MiamiDade’s was at 11.3%.
As of Tuesday, the state Department of Economic Opportunity has paid more than 1.535 million people nearly $7.3 billion in state and federal benefits since mid-March, which is the starting point for when the COVID-19 pandemic started to erode the economy. Most of the benefit money has come from federal relief programs signed into law on March 27.
But there is still an unknown number of people from around the state who say they can’t reach the agency to resolve problems such as missing payments.
The agency said it reverted to making biweekly payments to the unemployed after temporarily making weekly payments after the coronavirus outbreak. It also cited technical problems that it says have been resolved.
Starting Monday, workers who want to modify the dates of their claims must call the Reemployment Assistance Customer Service center at 1-833-352-7759, option 5. The DEO said it is allowing changes because of applicants’ inability to access the system online.
People may be eligible to modify the dates of their claims to the dates they originally attempted to apply for benefits only if they were unable to file a claim between the weeks of March 9 and April 9 of this year, the agency says on its website.
While unemployment claims are falling, new job offers continue to be advertised in greater numbers in the retail and fast food sectors among large corporate chains such as Amazon, CVS, Dunkin’ Donuts McDonald’s and Walgreen’s.
CareerSource Broward, the nonprofit job search and training agency, conducted its final virtual job fair of the month Thursday.