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Total California initial claims (regular UI plus PUA claims by the self-employed) continued rising for the week of June 27, growing 2.8%. The increase in California was the result of an elevated number of PUA claims by the self-employed, again suggesting the additional destructive element coming from last year’s AB 5 to California jobs and incomes.
This week’s orders reinstituting closures in 19 counties is likely to further increase the total in the weeks ahead. As suggested in the separate WARN Act analyses, most layoffs continue to be temporary but an increasing percentage is now shifting to permanent, an indication that the recovery period will face additional difficulties in returning to previous job and employment levels.
Nationally, actual claims (not seasonally adjusted (NSA)) for regular UI were largely unchanged at 1,445,481, while the seasonally adjusted (SA) level used for trend analysis is being reported as a 3.7% decrease at 1,427,000. Combined with PUA claims, the national total NSA numbers eased 2.4%. California showed 279,341 initial UI claims (NSA) along with 101,660 initial PUA claims (NSA). As with the employment and job numbers, the initial claims data is another indication that the economic downturn has been more severe in California, while today’s jobs numbers for the US indicate the US on average is in the midst of a recovery.
Combining both the regular UI and PUA initial claims, California had the highest number of initial claims among the states. Total initial claims for California for the week were 2.1% of the May labor force, moving up to the 6th highest among the states. To date, total initial claims of 7.0 million since the beginning of the state’s shutdown represent over a third of the labor force. This level, however, does not translate directly into the unemployment level. Not all claims are necessarily approved, filers may have secured employment after submitting their claim, and individuals may have filed more than one claim in this period, a factor that will increase with the reinstitution of the 19 county closures.
Although not included in the table below, claims under the new Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) program continues to show significant numbers. This new category allows an additional 13 weeks of coverage for persons who have exhausted their regular benefits, including eligibility for the additional $600 a week. California claims were down at 208,089 or 28% of total claims nationally. Today’s national jobs release indicates that longer-term unemployment overall is a growing issue in the labor force, with the number of workers unemployed 15 to 26 weeks in June at 1.9 million, or about 2.5 times the level in June 2019. The number of unemployed for 27 weeks and over, however, was largely unchanged from a year ago.
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