November 23, 2020
New Mass. unemployment claims reach six-month high
Photo | Grant Welker
Galaxy Life Sciences is building a biomanufacturing facility off Belmont and Plantation streets in Worcester.
By Grant Welker
New weekly unemployment claims in Massachusetts have reached their highest levels in more than six months, with some industries that had initially been relatively spared, including manufacturing and education.
Such claims have now risen in 12 of the past 14 weeks since reaching a low point in early August, when cases statewide were far lower than the spring or current levels, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development.
Rising weekly new unemployment claims illustrate the lingering economic challenges of the coronavirus pandemic despite an improving unemployment rate. The rate for October in Massachusetts was 7.4%, its lowest since before the pandemic hit, and a drastic improvement from a high of 17.4% in June. It was 2.8% in March.
Claims for the week ending Nov. 14 totaled 52,103. That's far higher than the 14,729 recorded at the state's low point in the week ending Aug. 1, though a fraction of the 181,423 seen at the height of the crisis in late March.
As the pandemic has gone on — and as it has quickly worsened again since the start of autumn — industries that weren't as hard hit initially are seeing much larger rates of new unemployment claims.
Education and professional and technical services, for example, each had six times more unemployment claims in the week ending Nov. 14 than they did in the week ending Aug. 1. Over the same period, claims for health and social services jobs have nearly quadrupled, and those in manufacturing have more than tripled.
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