NH Coronavirus Pandemic Unemployment Claims Drop Again

CONCORD, NH — Jobless claims continue to drop in New Hampshire, according to the latest data released by the U.S. Department of Labor Thursday.

For the week ending May 9, 9,491 people filed for unemployment insurance in the state — a drop of nearly 3,000 from the week before. The department also revised New Hampshire's May 2 numbers up from 11,834, reported on May 7, to 12,475.

These numbers are much lower than the 20,000 to 36,000 weekly filers reported between late March and mid-April.

Official insured unemployment claims for the week ending May 2 in the state, according to the labor department, were 116,642. However, New Hampshire Employment Security pegged the number of claims on May 2 to be more than 172,000.

Earlier this month, employment security lowered the labor participation rate from 780,420 in February to 764,870 for March, based on workforce age sampling, transients, and other factors. But even with the slight change, the state's unofficial unemployment rate is a whopping 22.5 percent.

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In mid-March, the rate was 2.8 percent.

Nationally, initial unemployment claims were 2.98 million — lower than the past two previous weeks which were a little above 3 million. The national unemployment rate is officially 15.7 percent with 23 million collecting unemployment benefits, according to the labor department.

Unemployment In Patch Communities

Employment security also released new community unemployment claims from around the state.

The latest community-by-community breakdown is from April 25 and based on about 161,000 claims beginning in mid-March when the state started seeing the economic collapse in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Of all Patch communities, Nashua had the most new unemployment claims between March 15 and April 25 with 7,687. Concord had 4,350 while Merrimack had 2,347. Portsmouth had 2,261, Londonderry had 2,210 and Salem 2,138. Hampton, Bedford, and Milford had between 1,700 and 1,500.

Manchester, the state's largest city, expectedly had the most claims during the seven-week time period with 14,049, according to the state.

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Sector Unemployment

According to the state, full-service restaurants have been hit the hardest in New Hampshire with more than 15,000 claims.

General medial and surgical hospitals came in at nearly 4,600 while hotels and motels, limited-service restaurants, and dentist offices were about 3,600. Child day centers and new car dealers reported between 2,700 and 2,500 filers. Claims from job cuts at elementary and secondary schools were nearly 2,400.

None of these numbers include people losing jobs who don't qualify for benefit claims despite both local and national officials stating that anyone who lost their job due to COVID-19 would be able to collect benefits.

The data, the state noted, also did not include residents who work out-of-state. They file in the state where the business is located.

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