State unemployment claims snap string of rising unemployment filings.

California accounts for 27 percent of the nation's unemployment filings

Unemployment claims in California fell last week, snapping a string of three consecutive weeks of rising jobless filings.

Despite the decline, California still accounted for a stunning 27% of all the jobless claims filed in the United States last week.

“California has had more restrictions in place,” said Stephen Levy, director of the Palo Alto-based Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy. “Other parts of the country have fewer restrictions. That means California is recovering more slowly.”

An estimated 230,200 California workers filed first-time claims for unemployment during the week that ended Sept. 12, down from the 243,400 who filed the prior week, the U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday. In the last six months, 8.6 million workers in the state have filed for unemployment.

Nationwide, unemployment claims also declined last week, falling to 860,000, down from 893,000 for the week ending Sept. 5.

The state’s share of the initial unemployment claims nationwide was unchanged from the week of Sept. 5.

“California once again has unemployment claims way above the national rate,” said Michael Bernick, a former director of the state’s Employment Development Department and an employment attorney with law firm Duane Morris.

That 27% is the highest share of unemployment claims for California during the six months of

business shutdowns. California has only 11% of the nation’s workforce, which means the state is enduring a dramatically outsized share of the jobless claims in the United States.

Some experts believe that the filing of a growing number of fraudulent claims as part of organized crime rings could be one of the factors that have hobbled a California recovery. While unemployment fraud exists, business shutdowns are by far a bigger factor behind California’s lagging rebound, in Levy’s view.

“I don’t think it’s fraud, the reason is that we have more restrictions,” Levy said.

Although California did achieve a respite from increasing claims last week, the state is still mired in an overall trend that points to a struggling job market.

Measured by a fourweek moving average, which experts use to smooth out short-term gyrations, California continues to experience rising jobless claims.

Over the most recent four weeks, initial unemployment claims in California have averaged 222,500 a week as of Sept. 12, which is 10,000 more than the prior four-week moving average.

Another grim reminder of how far California has to go before its wobbly job market recovers: The 230,200 unemployment claims filed last week are more than five times larger than the average of 45,000 unemployment claims for January and February, the final two months that weren’t affected by government-ordered shutdowns.

“An astonishing 39% of the California workforce” have filed for unemployment benefits since the shutdowns began, Bernick said.