News Release

For Immediate Release: July 9, 2020
Media Contact: Craig Shaul, Craig.Shaul@labor.idaho.gov or Salvador Vazquez, Salvador.Vazquez@labor.idaho

New initial claims for unemployment insurance benefits totaled 4,924 for the week ending July 4, decreasing 9 percent – or 493 claims – from the previous week.

The four-week moving average rose 6 percent to an average of 4,564 new initial claims per week.

Continued claims – the number of people who requested a benefit payment – dropped by 6 percent from the previous week to 29,090, the ninth consecutive week of declines. The four-week moving average fell 13 percent from 37,122 to 32,450 for the week ending July 4.

Accommodation and food services represented 15 percent of total claims for the week ending July 4. Manufacturing also represented 15 percent, with health care and social assistance at 12 percent,  followed by retail 11 percent. The aggregated claims for these four sectors accounted for 53 percent of the total claims for the week.

By age, 27 percent of claims were for people ages 25 to 34. Young people under the age 25 claimed 21 percent, people ages 35 to 44 represented 19 percent and workers ages 45 to 54 accounted for 16 percent. By gender, females filed 52 percent of claims, slightly more than males at 48 percent.

Laid-off Idaho workers filed 167,484 initial claims for unemployment benefits during the 16 weeks since the COVID-19 state of emergency declaration – 2.9 times the total number of initial claims filed in all of 2019 in just three months. Seventy percent of the initial claims filed were in the first six weeks.

The department paid out $35.7 million in claims during the week of June 28-July 4, down from $44.7 million the week of June 21-27. Regular state unemployment benefit payouts were $6.8 million, down from $8.2 million the previous week, but 5.2 times higher than the same week in 2019. Of the CARES Act programs, Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation payments (PEUC) were $1.5 million, with payouts for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) at $2.4 million and Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) at $25 million.

As of July 4, total benefit payments attributed to COVID-19 layoffs reached $602.4 million. Unemployment insurance regular benefits accounted for $147.8 million of the total, with PEUC benefits at $9.8 million, PUA benefits at $33.1 million and FPUC payments at $411.7 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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