Press Release Massachusetts Weekly Unemployment Claimant Data 03-04-21

MASSACHUSETTS — Massachusetts Weekly Unemployment Claimant Data

For the week ending February 27, Massachusetts had 14,029 individuals file an initial claim for regular Unemployment Insurance (UI), a decrease of 1,573 from the previous week.  Decreases in initial claims filings were widespread among all sectors.  The largest decreases in filings were seen in Transportation and Warehousing, down 1,545, as schools resume after vacation; Construction, down 255; and Food and Accommodation, down 245 claims.  Notable increases in filings were seen in Health Care and Social Assistance, up 149; Information Not Available (either lacking employer or industry information), up 100; and Wholesale Trade, up 75 claims.  Since March 15, a total of 1,938.755 initial claims for regular UI have been filed.  After six consecutive weeks of declines, continued weeks claimed for the week ending February 27, at 150,981 increased by 2,798 over the previous week.

For the week ending February 27, the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program had 4,849 initial claims filed, an increase of 2,130 over the previous week.  A total of 944,816 claimants have filed an initial claim for the PUA since April 20, 2020.  PUA continued weeks claimed from February 21 to February 27 increased to 456,752.

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 4,987 for the week ending February 27 were 85 more than the previous week. Since implementation, PEUC filings now total 416,726.  PEUC continued weeks claimed was down to 83,638, a decrease of 3,193 over the previous week.

The federal/state Extended Benefits (EB) program, which triggered on May 3 due to the high volume of claims, for the week ending February 27 had 10,487 initial claims filed, as PEUC claims continue to exhaust.  EB continued weeks claimed from February 21 to February 27 at 60,546 were 1,588 less than the previous week.

                  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 20^th rather than the week ending February 27^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 20^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 20^th, 2021:

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