First-time jobless claims in Maine increase

(The Center Square) – New claims for unemployment benefits in Maine edged up last week, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s weekly report.

There were 791 new applications for state unemployment benefits filed for the week that ended Oct. 9 – up by 191 from the previous week, the federal agency reported on Thursday.

There were 80 new claims for federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a federal program created to provide benefits for those who didn’t qualify for state unemployment. That’s 11 more than the previous week, according to the report.

PUA and other federal unemployment programs created by Congress in response to the pandemic – including a $300 per week enhanced benefit – expired on Sept. 4.

The labor department data only shows first-time unemployment claims that were filed for the previous week, not those that were successfully processed.

State labor officials attributed the slight uptick in first-time claims for state jobless benefits to seasonal layoffs that are typical for this time of year.

Meanwhile, continuing state unemployment claims – which lag behind a week and are considered a barometer of the overall labor situation – totaled 5,369 in the week ending Oct. 2. That’s 571 less than the preceding week.

Maine has distributed more than $2.49 billion in state and federal jobless benefits to nearly 400,000 jobless workers during the pandemic, according to state data.

The state’s unemployment rate remained steady at 4.9% in August, according to the Maine Department of Labor.

That’s down from a high of 9.1% last April but still higher than the state’s average 3% unemployment rate throughout 2019.

Still, employers in Maine and elsewhere are struggling to find workers amid a prolonged hiring crunch that economists say is holding back growth of the pandemic-battered economy.

Nationally, first-time unemployment claims also declined last week with businesses rehiring workers ahead of the fall and winter months

There were 293,000 new jobless claims filed during the week that ended Oct. 9, a decrease of 36,000 from the previous week, according to the labor department.

Continuing unemployment claims, which lag behind a week, dropped by 134,000 to more than 2.59 million nationally for the week that ended Oct. 2, the agency said.

More than 3.6 million Americans were still receiving state or federal jobless benefits in the week ending Sept. 25, the agency reported. That’s more than 520,000 fewer than the preceding week.

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