Unemployment Claims Dip, But WA Unemployment Remains High

WASHINGTON — 100,762 people across Washington applied for unemployment for the first time last week, adding to a total of 1,086,031 people who claimed unemployment overall. It is still record high unemployment but, for the first time in months, it means that the total number of unemployment claims was less than the week before.

It is a massive number of unemployment claims, last weeks 100,762 new claims is 18 times more than the state saw for the same week last year, but it could be a first step in the right direction just as the state begins to relax some of the shelter-in-place order.

According to the Employment Security Department, unemployment changes over the past two weeks can be broken down as follows:

By each of these metrics, unemployment claims dropped last week compared to the week before.

Employment Security Commissioner Suzi Levine says that since the coronavirus outbreak began in early March, the state has paid $2.14 billion to Washingtonians filing for unemployment. The state also notes that roughly 57,000 have applied, but issues with their claims are still being resolved before they can receive benefits.

Here's a look at the counties that saw the biggest improvements last week:

The state is tracking which industries are improving as well. They say new claims from health care or social care workers dropped 7 percent, retail workers filed 19 percent less claims, and construction saw 20 percent less new claims than the week before.