Rise in jobless claims reflects grim economy
First-time claims back over 1M after 2 weeks of falling numbers.
The coronavirus recession struck swiftly and violently. Now, with the U.S. economy still in the grip of the outbreak five months later, the recovery looks fitful and uneven — and painfully slow.
The latest evidence came Thursday, when the government reported that the number of workers applying for unemployment climbed back over 1 million last week after two weeks of declines.
The figures suggest that employers are still slashing jobs even as some businesses reopen and some sectors like housing and manufacturing have rebounded.
“Getting the virus in check dictates when there’ll be relief from this economic nightmare, and it doesn’t look like it will be soon,” said AnnElizabeth Konkel, an economist at Indeed, a job listings website.
The advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 1,106,000 in the week ending Aug. 15, an increase of 135,000 from the previous week’s revised level, according to new U.S. Department of Labor numbers Thursday.
Nationally, the overall number
of people seeking jobless benefits is more than double the peak of the Great Recession of 2007-2008, Nancy Vanden Houten, an economist at Oxford Economics, said in a note quoted by the Wall Street Journal Thursday.
In Montgomery County in the week ending last Saturday, 1,083 claimants filed first-time applications for jobless benefits, while 17,577 claims were ongoing from previous weeks.
In Clark County, there were 221 new claims for benefits while 3,466 claims were ongoing.
Butler County saw 564 new claims for benefits and 10,720 ongoing claims last week, while in Warren County, those numbers were 302 and 5,228 respectively.
The scourge in the U.S. has killed more than 170,000 people and caused over 5.5 million confirmed infections, with deaths rising by more than 1,000 a day on average. Worldwide, the death toll stands at about 790,000, with over 22 million cases.
The overall number of laidoff American workers collecting unemployment benefits declined last week from 15.5 million to 14.8 million. Many of them probably found jobs. But some may have used up all their benefits, which in most states run out after about six months.
Scott Murray, an economist at Nationwide, sees the long-term trend as encouraging, but the pace of hiring “will be challenged by doubts over school reopening and travel restrictions.”
“A brief stall is usual in the recovery’s early stage as both further job cuts and the new opportunities offered by economic growth renewal occur almost simultaneously,” Murray said in a note.
Gus Faucher, an economist with PNC Financial, saw a similar picture.
“The amount of unemployment in the U.S. economy is gradually falling, but is still very high, and the pace of improvement is slowing,” he said. “It could be that the increase in cases of coronavirus in many parts of the country over the summer has weighed on the recovery in the labor market.”
Ohioans filed 21,663 firsttime jobless claims last week, according to state numbers. That 252,552 fewer than the peak earlier this year.
Ohioans filed 359,585 continued or ongoing jobless claims last week, which was 416,717 fewer than the peak earlier this year.
The total number of initial jobless claims filed in Ohio over the last 22 weeks (1,626,371) was more than the combined total of those filed during the last four years, the state said.
The 4-week moving average was 1,175,750 claims nationally, a decrease of 79,000 from the previous week’s revised average. The previous week’s average was revised up by 2,000 from 1,252,750 to 1,254,750.
The U.S. labor market has experienced historically high unemployment since the COVID-19 era begin in earnest in mid-March.
This story contains information from the Associated Press.
The total number of initial jobless claims filed in Ohio over the last 22 weeks (1,626,371) was more than the combined total of those filed during the last four years, the state said.