Press Release Massachusetts Weekly Unemployment Claimant Data 02-11-21

MASSACHUSETTS — Massachusetts Weekly Unemployment Claimant Data

For the week ending February 6, Massachusetts had 19,675 individuals file an initial claim for regular Unemployment Insurance (UI), a slight decrease of 27 from the previous week.  Larger decreases in filings were seen in Food and Accommodation, down 261; Other Services, which includes machine and equipment repairs and laundry services, 96 less; Manufacturing, 68 fewer; and Administrative and Waste Services decreasing by 67.  Bigger increases in initial claims were posted in Information Not Available, up 93; Professional and Technical Services, 75 more; Retail Trade, 71 higher and Finance and Insurance which increased by 70.  Since March 15, a total of 1,891,992 initial claims for regular UI have been filed.  Continued weeks claimed for the week ending February 6 at 159,136 were 3,183 less than the previous week.  Initial claims filings and continued weeks claimed posted decreases for the fourth consecutive week.

From January 31 to February 6, the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program had 4,257 initial claims filed, a small decrease of 176 over the previous week.  A total of 933,890 claimants have filed an initial claim for the PUA since April 20, 2020.  For the third consecutive week, PUA continued weeks claimed decreased and at 305,230 were 9,189 less. 

The Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), which provided up to 13 weeks of extended benefits, was implemented on May 21.  PEUC initial claims filed at 5,915 was 275 more than the previous week. Since implementation, PEUC filings now total 400,100.  PEUC continued weeks claimed at 97,474 for the week ending February 6 were 6,221 less, the ninth consecutive week of decline.

The federal/state Extended Benefits (EB) program, which triggered on May 3 due to the high volume of claims, for the week ending February 6 had 7,397 initial claims filed, down 2,973 from the previous week.  As PEUC claims continue to exhaust, EB continued weeks claimed from January 31 to February 6 increased by 4,554 and now total 122,299.

                  Initial Claims Filed

Initial claims by industry

Continued weeks claimed by industry

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Industry share of CWC in most recent week

Demographic Breakdowns

Below we present demographic statistics on ethnicity, gender, and race for all those claimants who filed for a continued week in the period prior to the above information. This is to say that because of the timing of data availability, the below statistics reflect continued weeks claimed in the week ending January 30^th rather than the week ending February 6^th.

Regular UI Demographic Series

Here we present the breakdown by gender, ethnicity, and race of continued claims for Regular UI between March 8^th and February 6^th, 2021:

UI Extensions Demographic Series

Here we present the breakdown by gender, ethnicity, and race of continued claims for the PEUC and EB programs, which cover the long term unemployed, between May 31^st and February 6^th, 2021:

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