- Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development
Media Contact for Massachusetts Weekly Initial Unemployment Claimant Data (05-07-20)
Charles Pearce, Director of Communications, Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development
Massachusetts had 55,223 individuals file an initial claim for standard Unemployment Insurance (UI) from April 26 to May 2, the fifth consecutive week of fewer initial claims filing over the previous week. Since March 15, a total of 777,232 initial claims have been filed for UI. For the week of April 26 to May 2, there were a total of 556,272 continued UI claims, an increase of 5.4% over the previous week.
Since April 20th, around 185,000 claimants have filed for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA).
Over the last month, the customer service staff at the Department of Unemployment Assistance (DUA) has grown from around 50 employees to over 1300. The remote customer service operation is now making over 25,000 individual contacts per day and DUA continues to host daily unemployment town halls – which are being held in English, Spanish, and Portuguese - and have been attended by over 230,000 constituents. Massachusetts was one of the first states to successfully launch the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program. Due to DUA's previous efforts to migrate their systems to the cloud, the first unemployment agency in the country to do so, the unemployment online platforms for both regular UI and PUA has maintained functionality throughout the surge in demand.
The below tables and graphs are relative to standard UI only.
Industry |
Week Ending 4/25 |
Week Ending 5/2 |
Change |
% Change |
---|---|---|---|---|
Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting |
208 |
166 |
-42 |
-20.2% |
Mining |
12 |
10 |
-2 |
-16.7% |
Utilities |
50 |
35 |
-15 |
-30.0% |
Construction |
3,155 |
2,119 |
-1,036 |
-32.8% |
Manufacturing |
3,798 |
3,435 |
-363 |
-9.6% |
Wholesale Trade |
2,452 |
1,889 |
-563 |
-23.0% |
Retail Trade |
10,085 |
7,060 |
-3,025 |
-30.0% |
Transportation & Warehouse |
3,289 |
2,356 |
-933 |
-28.4% |
Information |
1,200 |
967 |
-233 |
-19.4% |
Finance & Insurance |
592 |
557 |
-35 |
-5.9% |
Real Estate |
977 |
689 |
-288 |
-29.5% |
Professional and Technical Services |
3,775 |
3,065 |
-710 |
-18.8% |
Management of Companies |
421 |
346 |
-75 |
-17.8% |
Administrative & Waste Services |
4,788 |
4,129 |
-659 |
-13.8% |
Education |
2,140 |
1,670 |
-470 |
-22.0% |
Health & Social Assistance |
9,271 |
7,943 |
-1,328 |
-14.3% |
Arts, Entertainment & Recreation |
1,889 |
1,299 |
-590 |
-31.2% |
Food & Accommodation |
7,515 |
6,051 |
-1,464 |
-19.5% |
Other Services |
4,833 |
3,429 |
-1,404 |
-29.1% |
Public Administration |
1,604 |
1,466 |
-138 |
-8.6% |
Information Not Available |
8,498 |
6,542 |
-1,956 |
-23.0% |



The tables below show the breakdown of regular unemployment insurance initial claims from March 15th – April 25th along gender, ethnicity, and race.
Number | Percentage | |
---|---|---|
Female | 382,017 | 52.95% |
Male | 339,430 | 47.05% |
Number | Percentage | |
---|---|---|
Hispanic or Latino | 103,261 | 15.12% |
Not Hispanic or Latino | 579,634 | 84.88% |
Number | Percentage | |
---|---|---|
American Indian or Alaska Native | 3,669 | 0.59% |
Asian | 49,119 | 7.88% |
Black or African American | 62,276 | 9.99% |
Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander | 2,066 | 0.33% |
White | 506,409 | 81.22% |