Press Release: 2021-09-24

Massachusetts Weekly Unemployment Claimant Data for the week ending September 18, 2021

Massachusetts Weekly Unemployment Claimant Data for the week ending September 18, 2021:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 9/23/2021

MASSACHUSETTS — Massachusetts Weekly Unemployment Claimant Data

For the week ending September 18, Massachusetts had 6,915 individuals file an initial claim for regular Unemployment Insurance (UI), a decrease of 380 claims from the previous week with widespread small decreases among all sectors. The larger decreases were seen in: Information Not Available (either lacking industry or employer information), down 209 claims; Food and Accommodation, down 99; Health Care and Social Assistance, down 64; and Administrative and Waste Services, down 43 claims. Continued weeks claimed for week ending September 18 increased by 6,732 from the previous week to 58,607 due to Massachusetts’ maximum duration going from 26 to 30 weeks and eligible claimants can claim up to 4 additional weeks of state benefits after the federal extension ended. The largest increases in Food and Accommodation, Health Care and Social Assistance, Retail Trade, Other Services, and Administrative and Waste Services.

For week ending September 18, the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program had 1,209 initial claims filed and 42,410 continued weeks claimed, a decrease of 141,310 from the previous week. The PUA benefits program ended on September 4, 2021.

The Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), which was implemented on May 21, 2020, had 618 initial claims.  Continued weeks claimed decreased by 166,219 to 5,904.  The PEUC program ended on September 4, 2021.

The federal/state Extended Benefits (EB) program which triggered off on July 17 had 57 initial claims filed and 5 continued weeks claimed.

The Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) which provided an additional $300 a week on top of regular benefits also ended on September 4, 2021.

NOTE: The next UI claims report and demographic will be published on and thereafter on the third Thursday of each month, starting October 21st, 2021, at mass.gov/lwd in the News and Updates section. Weekly UI claims reporting can be found at https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf

 Initial Claims Filed

Industry	Week Ending 9/11	Week Ending 9/18	Change	% Change
Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting	40	51	11	27.5%
Mining	0	1	1
Utilities	8	11	3	37.5%
Construction	737	740	3	0.4%
Manufacturing	377	425	48	12.7%
Wholesale Trade	250	219	-31	-12.4%
Retail Trade	683	655	-28	-4.1%
Transportation and Warehouse	309	272	-37	-12.0%
Information	135	143	8	5.9%
Finance and Insurance	220	192	-28	-12.7%
Real Estate	113	103	-10	-8.8%
Professional and Technical Services	553	515	-38	-6.9%
Management of Companies	63	61	-2	-3.2%
Administrative and Waste Services	670	627	-43	-6.4%
Education	174	222	48	27.6%
Health Care and Social Assistance	976	912	-64	-6.6%
Arts, Entertainment and Recreation	109	129	20	18.3%
Food and Accommodation	791	692	-99	-12.5%
Other Services	540	546	6	1.1%
Public Administration	151	212	61	40.4%
Information Not Available	396	187	-209	-52.8%

 

Demographic Breakdowns 

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 September 4th rather than the week ending September 11th. All demographic information is presented as a percentage of claimants who responded, excluding claimants for whom the information was not available. 

Regular UI Demographic Series

Here we present the breakdown by gender, ethnicity, and race of continued claims for Regular UI between March 8th, 2020 and September 11th, 2021:

UI Extensions Demographic Series 

Here we present the breakdown by gender, ethnicity, and race of continued claims for the PEUC and EB programs, which cover the long term unemployed, between May 31st, 2020 and September 11th, 2021:

PUA Demographic Series 

Demographic breakdowns of continued claims for the PUA program, which covers the self-employed and others not eligible for traditional unemployment insurance, is no longer available as the program ended on September 4th, 2021.