Press Release Massachusetts Weekly Unemployment Claimant Data 02-18-21

MASSACHUSETTS — Massachusetts Weekly Unemployment Claimant Data

From February 7 to February 13, Massachusetts had 17,132 individuals file an initial claim for regular Unemployment Insurance (UI), a decrease of 2,543 from the previous week.  Decreases were seen in almost all of the sectors.  The largest decreases in initial claims filings were seen in Retail Trade, down 450; Health Care and Social Assistance, 340 less; Professional and Technical Services, 228 fewer; and Construction, as well as Other Services, both decreasing by 224 claims.  Since March 15, a total of 1,909,124 initial claims for regular UI have been filed.  Continued weeks claimed for the week ending February 13 at 154,216 were 4,920 less than the previous week.  Initial claims filings and continued weeks claimed posted decreases for the fifth consecutive week.

For the week ending February 13, the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program had 3,358 initial claims filed, a decrease of 899 over the previous week.  A total of 937,248 claimants have filed an initial claim for the PUA since April 20, 2020.  For the fourth week in a row, PUA continued weeks claimed decreased and at 291,413 were 13,817 fewer. 

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 6,737 for the week ending February 13 were 822 more than the previous week. Since implementation, PEUC filings now total 406,837.  For the tenth consecutive week PEUC continued weeks claimed decreased and at 88,654 were 8,820 less.

                  Initial Claims Filed

Initial claims by industry

Continued weeks claimed by industry

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 February 6^th rather than the week ending February 13^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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