Data released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Labor showed that 12,289 New Jerseyans filed for unemployment the week ending Nov. 14. The week before, almost 21,000 New Jerseyans filed for unemployment.

For comparison, when Gov. Phil Murphy ordered sweeping business closures in March, the state saw more than 155,000 jobless claims the week ending March 21, 206,253 claims the week after and 214,836 claims the first week of April.

The unemployment rate has crept up from the all-time record-low during the pandemic of 6.7% in April, compared to 8.2% in October, according to the state labor department. That brings the New Jersey unemployment rate into Great Recession territory.

During the spring, casinos, malls, sit-down restaurants, non-essential retail, indoor amusement, indoor theaters, many forms of construction, gyms, nail and hair salons all had to shutter their doors.

Those restrictions were gradually loosened over the summer, as some of the key metrics used to determine the spread of the virus all moved in a comfortable direction for state health officials.

But with COVID-19 surging to all-time record-high new cases, and hospitalizations and daily fatalities reaching levels not seen since the spring, Murphy has warned that at least some of these restrictions could be in the pipeline to be reinstated.

“It’s going to get ugly the next two or three months at a minimum,” the governor said Nov. 19, previously suggesting that the next round of restrictions could bar indoor dining and elective surgeries.

All told, nearly 1.8 million New Jerseyans have filed for unemployment, to which the state has paid out $19 billion in benefits.

Most of that came through the weekly $600 in federal unemployment relief, which expired in July, while Congress and the White House remain at a stalemate over how to extend federal COVID-19 relief.

The added federal unemployment relief is being replaced with a $300 a week expansion from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which will last just six weeks, and has been paid out in single lump sums of up to $1,800 over the past month.

All told, nearly 817,000 New Jerseyans have gotten a combined $1.3 billion under the program.