New unemployment claims climb 9.1% in Utah after weeks of decline

New unemployment claims climb 9.1% in Utah after weeks of decline

(Kristin Murphy, KSL)


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SALT LAKE CITY — After several weeks of drops in unemployment claims, Utah saw a 9.1% rise in new filings for jobless benefits, the Utah Department of Workforce Services reported Thursday.

According to its weekly report, 5,452 people filed new claims for unemployment benefits for the week of May 31 to June 6 compared to 4,996 filed the week before. Last year, the average weekly volume was 1,131.

The increase was a departure from previous weeks that saw claims consistently declining for eight consecutive weeks.

“That’s the first week that we’ve actually seen an increase in claims over the last nine weeks,” said Unemployment Insurance Division Director Kevin Burt. “So we’re just kind of monitoring that, whether that’s a trend or not is yet to be determined. I think one week is not a trend so we just kind of have to sit and evaluate that and make sure that again it is maintaining at a pretty high amount.”

He added that there are likely many factors that contributed to the weekly claims increase.

“I think it just means that the economy has not grown as fast as potentially (some) had hoped and so maybe some employers that were able to hold on to some of their employees have seen that they’re unable to continue to hold on to some of those employees,” he said. “It could be that they received the (Paycheck Protection Program) loan and that could have provided some assistance, but maybe has since expired and now they’re still not able to do it or some industries are again starting to see that the economic activity hasn’t returned as hoped.”

Overall, the agency is handling 91,148 jobless claims, 2,000 fewer than the previous week. The division reported that $25.8 million was paid out in traditional jobless compensation for the week along with an additional $48.2 million of the $600 weekly federal stimulus distributed to individuals and $1.1 million in federal extended benefit payments, bringing the total to $75.2 million in benefits provided during the seven-day period.

“To date, we’ve received, combined with all unemployment benefits, a little over 210,000 claims and we’ve paid out over $645 million in benefits since March 15,” Burt said Thursday during his weekly news conference. “Just to put that into perspective, during the calendar years 2016, ‘17, ‘18 and ‘19 combined — we paid out $650 million in unemployment benefits. So in the last three months, we’ve almost paid out more unemployment benefits than we did the four previous years combined.”

The number of Utahns who discontinued their unemployment insurance claims was 6,617.

“We have again seen a persistently high number of new and continued claims for unemployment benefits, however, we are also glad to see thousands stop requesting the benefit every week,” he said. “While the unemployment benefit has provided stability for many Utahns, it is an important reminder that it is also very temporary.”

For the week, the industries with the highest percentage of claims were office and administrative support at 14.7%, management occupations at 10%, along with sales and related occupations at 8.6%. The counties with the highest number of individuals filing new unemployment insurance claims were Salt Lake County at 41%, Utah County at 15%, Davis County at 8.1%, Weber County 7.8% and Washington County at 3.3%.

Asked about the demographic composition of claimants, Burt said when it comes to unemployment insurance, the data has been fairly representative of Utah’s general makeup across all population segments.

“Keep in mind that there are some things that are a factor of eligibility when it comes to unemployment insurance and there are some things that are absolutely not a factor of eligibility. So while an application does request certain pieces of information, they are not validated in many instances, nor are they verified because, in the end, they don’t affect the eligibility,” he said. “Eligibility and unemployment is based on your wages and how you’ve been connected to the workforce. So all of our demographics data that we have seen for the most part, mimic or mirror the demographics of the state of Utah. We haven’t seen anomalies really stand out when it comes to age, race or ethnicity or even county. The pandemic has hit everybody, or a significant portion of Utah, heavily and it has done that across all ages and all demographics.”

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