Initial jobless claims in NH barely budge as nearly 2,300 file for unemployment
New numbers reflect continued slow climb out of recession
(AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Some 2,276 Granite Staters filed initial unemployment claims during the week ending Sept. 19, indicating that the economic recession, like the pandemic, is easing, but things are certainly not back to normal. Before the recession, somewhere between 400 and 600 people were getting laid off a week.
The most recent total was a decrease of only four claims from the previous week.
Most of the new jobless will join the 36,492 people who were already filing continuing unemployment claims during the week ending Sept. 12. That number is down from the previous week by about 3,446, or 8.6%, roughly the same percentage as the week before.
But to put it in perspective, there were about 20,000 Granite Staters collecting claims at the beginning of March, before the pandemic hit the economy.
In other words, there are more people going back to work than are getting laid off each week – an improvement, but neither number has really changed, meaning that the climb out of the recession is steady, but still painfully slow.
It was also the second week since the federal enhancement of an extra $300 a week, already down from the original $600 enhancement, ended. That means that checks, on average, are now less than half of the enhanced amount.
New Hampshire’s jobs situation is slightly better than in the rest of the country. Nationally, some 870,000 people were laid off, less than 5,000 more than last week. There were already 12.6 million jobless on Sept. 12, a decrease of 167,000, an improvement of just 1.3%.
