Nearly 20% of Whatcom’s jobs have disappeared since coronavirus restrictions started
The number of new jobless claims slowed down across the state last week, but it provides a short respite before another expected surge.
Washington state had 82,435 new jobless claims for the week ending April 18, according to the latest data from the Employment Security Department. That’s down significantly from the peak of 181,975 new claims in the final week of March.
Whatcom County had 2,612 new jobless claims last week, down from a peak of 6,268 at the end of March. In the five weeks since the coronavirus pandemic restrictions took hold, 23,161 Whatcom residents have filed for unemployment benefits. That’s about 19.6% of the people working in this area in February.
Statewide jobless claims are expected to jump for this week as the unemployment benefits program was expanded on Saturday, April 19, to include a variety of people such as self-employed workers.
“It is hard to imagine that the fifth highest week of claims in Washington state history could be considered the calm before the storm, but that is certainly what we saw last week,” said Employment Security Commissioner, Suzi LeVine said in a news release accompanying the data. “Although remaining at historic levels, the initial claims dropped last week before the tsunami of applications began this week when we launched the expanded benefit under the federal CARES Act.”
In the first 36 hours of the expanded program, the state received more jobless claim applications than the entire record-breaking week of March.
According to the data, Washington state has lost a staggering 605,514 jobs since March 7. The Employment Security Department also reported that $1.4 billion has been paid out by the state since the crisis began. About $900 million of that total was sent out this week, according to LeVine.
State data indicates that in the past two weeks, people in the 25-34 age group have taken the brunt of the job losses, followed by those in the 35-44 age group. Last week across the state retail trade was the industry that had the most job losses, followed by the health care/social assistance industry and manufacturing.
This story was originally published April 23, 2020 at 11:02 AM.
