Washington's Unemployment Claims Jumped 28 Percent Last Week

WASHINGTON — The coronavirus continues to have a grim impact on Washington's job market: data released Thursday from the state's Employment Security Department shows that unemployment claims jumped 28 percent for the last week alone, with a new total of 1,670,580 Washingtonians filing some type of unemployment.

The latest data from the Employment Security Department, or ESD, has been broken down as follows:

The ESD says they've already paid out over $1.01 billion for 565,764 of these claims.

Snohomish County was particularly hard hit, with unemployment claims jumping 29 percent compared to the week before. Spokane and Pierce County also saw 26 percent increases, and King County saw 25 percent more unemployment applications as well.

Breaking down the data by industry shows how some jobs are being hit much harder than others. Claims from former managers went up 60 percent last week, those from the business or financial operations sector also went up 55 percent. Conversely, after mass layoffs early on in restaurants there does seem to be a slight bounce-back in the service industry: food preparation and serving filings dropped five percent. Sales jobs also saw an 11 percent decrease in unemployment claims.

Record 15.4 percent unemployment

The new numbers come just one day after the state reported a record 15.4 percent unemployment rate for the month of April. That's the highest jobless rate the state has seen since it started keeping records in the 1970s.

To put the number in context, March had an unemployment rate of 5.1 percent, meaning unemployment more than tripled in one month. The ESD attributes the spike in part to the loss of 527,000 jobs across Washington. Employment Security Department leaders say the news was expected, and isn't likely to be better next month.

"While these numbers are dramatic, it is in alignment with what we expected as the state has taken the public health crisis seriously and is abiding by the 'Stay home, stay healthy' order," said ESD Commissioner Suzi LeVine. "These losses are likely to continue into May, with a shift coming the other direction as our economy gradually re-opens."

Washington's unemployment rate is above the nationwide average, but not by much: the United States saw a national unemployment rate of 14.7 percent in April

Payment delays due to benefit scammers

Since the coronavirus started causing mass layoffs in early March, the state has paid out almost $3.8 billion dollars in benefits. However, with more than 1,600,000 Washingtonians applying for unemployment, some fraudsters have tried to take advantage, and investigators say that's slowing down the whole payment process.

The ESD says the next round of unemployment payments will be delayed by several days as they try to track down and eliminate those fraudsters. The application system is also being changed so that anyone applying for unemployment will have to provide more information to verify their true identities going forward.

ESD is apologizing for the delays, and says they will do everything they can to keep payments on a regular schedule.

"We apologize for the hardship this may cause for valid claimants," said LeVine. "We are constantly evaluating our processes and systems to ensure we can pay benefits as quickly as possible to those who are qualified while not creating more opportunity for imposter fraud."

Related stories:

Washington Reaches Record 15.4 Percent Unemployment

Washington Pauses Unemployment Payments To Investigate Fraud