The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) this morning released updated statistics on the total number of people claiming unemployment benefits throughout the country in all programs for the week ending Oct. 3, 2020.
The total stood at 23,150,427, or 16.6 times the 1,393,973 persons claiming benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2019. The total was down from the 24,196,920 who were receiving benefits the week before, but the DOL did not specify whether the reduction was due to people finding jobs, their benefits running out, or a combination of both.
In the week ending Oct. 17, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 787,000, a decrease of 55,000 from the previous week’s revised level. The previous week’s level was revised down by 56,000 from 898,000 to 842,000.
Initial claims for unemployment benefits filed by former federal civilian employees totaled 1,519 in the week ending Oct. 10, an increase of 51 from the prior week. There were 898 initial claims filed by newly discharged veterans, a decrease of four from the preceding week.
The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending Oct. 3 were in Hawaii, 14.9%; California, 11.5%; Nevada, 11.3%; Georgia, 9.3%; Puerto Rico, 9.3%; Louisiana, 8.8%; District of Columbia, 8.4%; New Mexico, 7.8%; New York, 7.7%; and Illinois, 7.6%.
The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending Oct. 10 were in California, up 27,870; Illinois, up 11,261; Massachusetts, up 10,481; Georgia, up 9,292; and Indiana, up 7,840.
The largest decreases were in Michigan, down 2,615; North Carolina, down 2,362; Virginia, down 1,733; Montana, down 579; and Mississippi, down 375.
The New York State Department of Labor reported that the Hudson Valley had an unemployment rate in September of 6.5%, slightly below the average for all 10 regions of the state of 6.6% and dramatically lower than New York City”™s rate of 13.9%.
When Westchester County was broken out from other counties in the Hudson Valley Region, its unemployment rate turned out to be the highest, at 7%. In September, unemployment in Putnam County was 5.6%, while Dutchess recorded 5.8% unemployment. In Orange unemployment was 6.4%, in Rockland 6.5% and in Sullivan County 6.6%.
The Hudson Valley Region”™s 6.5% was down from 10.4% in August but up from the 3.6% recorded in Sept. 2019. In raw numbers, in Sept. 2020 there were 71,900 unemployed in the Hudson Valley Region, down from 120,500 in Aug. 2020 and up from 41,400 in Sept. 2019. The total labor force in the region was 1,103,000.
