Press Release Massachusetts Weekly Unemployment Claimant Data 10-22-20

For immediate release:

10/22/2020

Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development

Charles Pearce, Director of Communications - Exec. Office of Labor and Workforce Development

Phone

(617) 626-7121

Online

charles.pearce@mass.gov

MASSACHUSETTS — Massachusetts Weekly Unemployment Claimant Data

From October 11 to October 17, Massachusetts had 44,498 individuals file an initial claim for regular Unemployment Insurance (UI) an increase of 5,460 over the previous week. This is the fifth week in a row of increasing initial claims filings. Increases were seen in almost all sectors. Known industries with the highest increase in filings were Professional and Technical Services, up 674; Finance and Insurance, 671 higher; and Manufacturing, plus 510. The highest over the week increase of 1,498 filings occurred in the sector with no industry information available. A total of 1,421,775 initial claim for regular UI have been filed since March 15. Continued weeks claimed for week ending October 17, at 244,989, were down 15,492 or 5.9 percent over the previous week.

The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) initial claims filed from October 11 to October 17, at 11,614, were 136 claims higher than the previous week. Since April 20, 2020, 825,132 claimants have filed an initial claim for the PUA.

The Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), which provided up to 13 weeks of extended benefits, was implemented on May 21. For the week ending October 17, 18,133 initial claims were filed, a decrease of 4,237 over the previous week, the third consecutive week of declining PEUC filings. Since implementation, PEUC filings now total 255,062.

Initial Claims Filed

Industry	Week Ending 10/10	Week Ending 10/17	Change	% Change
Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting	123	116	-7	-5.7%
Mining	8	15	7	87.5%
Utilities	160	186	26	16.3%
Construction	1983	2253	270	13.6%
Manufacturing	2,279	2,789	510	22.4%
Wholesale Trade	1,481	1,623	142	9.6%
Retail Trade	2,650	2,759	109	4.1%
Transportation & Warehouse	999	1,051	52	5.2%
Information	855	981	126	14.7%
Finance & Insurance	2455	3126	671	27.3%
Real Estate	561	692	131	23.4%
Professional and Technical Services	4137	4811	674	16.3%
Management of Companies	271	322	51	18.8%
Administrative & Waste Services	1528	1691	163	10.7%
Education	2243	2738	495	22.1%
Health & Social Assistance	5122	5285	163	3.2%
Arts, Entertainment & Recreation	439	521	82	18.7%
Food & Accommodation	1808	1838	30	1.7%
Other Services	1869	1865	-4	-0.2%
Public Administration	3183	3454	271	8.5%
Information Not Available	4,884	6,382	1,498	30.7%

Initial claims by industry

Continued weeks claimed by industry

Industry share of CWC in most recent week

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 October 10^th rather than the week ending October 17^th.

Claimants by Gender