NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release: June 11, 2020
Media Contact: Salvador Vazquez, salvador.vazquez@labor.idaho.gov or Craig Shaul, craig.shaul@labor.idaho.gov

New initial claims for unemployment insurance benefits totaled 3,953 for the week ending June 6, increasing 8 percent – or 307 claims – from the previous week.

The four-week moving average of new initial claims declined 9 percent to an average of 4,532 new initial claims per week.

Continued claims – the number of people who requested a benefit payment – declined for the fifth consecutive week, falling to 47,779, down 6 percent from the previous week. The four-week moving average of 53,907 also fell 8 percent from the previous week.

Health care and social assistance, and manufacturing saw the largest shares of claims filed last week with 13 percent and 12 percent, respectively. Accommodation and food services accounted for the third largest group with 11 percent, and retail was fourth with nearly 10 percent. Combined, these four sectors continued to account for about half of all new claims filed during the week.

By age, 26 percent of claims were for those 25 to 34 years old and 21 percent for people ages 35 to 44. Young people under age 25 represented 15 percent of initial claims for the week. Claims by gender were an even split.

Laid-off Idaho workers filed 149,227 initial claims for unemployment benefits during the 12 weeks since the COVID-19 state of emergency declaration – 2.5 times the total number of initial claims filed in all of 2019. Seventy-five percent of the initial claims filed in this period were in the first five weeks.

Regular state unemployment benefit payouts for the week of May 31-June 6 reached $9.1 million, a 4 percent decrease over the previous week, but 8.3 times higher than the same week in 2019. Of the CARES Act programs, Pandemic Emergency Unemployment payments (PEUC) paid out $1.1 million, Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) paid out $1.2 million and Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) paid out $28.2 million. More information on these programs can be found at labor.idaho.gov/Covid19

As of June 6, total benefit payments attributed to COVID-19 layoffs reached $383.1 million. Unemployment insurance regular benefits made up $112 million, PEUC benefits made up $4.5 million, PUA benefits made up $8.2 million and FPUC payments made up $258.4 million.

Weekly claims by county and industry are available on Idaho’s claim data dashboard at https://lmi.idaho.gov/ui-weekly-claims

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