Weekly jobless filings in the state have slowly ticked back up as the state passes a year of widespread business shutdowns meant to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.

Data released March 18 from the New Jersey Department of Labor showed that 10,242 people filed for jobless benefits the week ending March 13, a 4.4% rise from the 9,840 claims the week ending the week prior.

A year into the pandemic, the state has given out a combined $24.8 billion of state and federal benefits, with more than 2 million people seeking jobless relief over the past 12 month.

And data released March 15 by the state Labor Department showed an addition of just 900 jobs to the state’s job market in January. The addition of more people looking for work pushed up the jobless rate, labor officials said, from 7.7% in December 2020 to 7.9% in January.

When Gov. Phil Murphy ordered mass closures of businesses where people congregate – restaurants, malls, casinos, gyms, theaters, indoor entertainment, salons and non-essential retail – unemployment shot up from 3.7% in March 2020 to 16.3% the next month.

It rose even further to an all-time record-high unemployment rate of 16.8% in June, outdoing unemployment surges seen during the Great Recession and Superstorm Sandy. Most of the filings were in the weeks immediately following those widespread business closures.

Nearly half of the jobs lost during the pandemic were regained between April and December last year, according to the state labor department, or a total of 352,00 positions.

Beginning this morning, indoor dining and other inside businesses – casinos, entertainment, spas, gyms and personal care businesses – could expand indoor capacity from 35% to 50%. But any impact on state employment levels could take weeks to gauge.

Over 100,000 people have been out of work that entire time since the onset of the pandemic, and so the state Labor Department automated the claim review process.

“As we reach the grim anniversary of the shutdowns and layoffs caused by the pandemic, our commitment to our workforce has never been stronger,” New Jersey Labor Commissioner Robert Asaro-Angelo said in a March 18 statement. “If you have been unemployed for a year, if your benefits have stopped and you don’t know why, or if you need new skills to re-enter the job market, I want you to know we are working day and night to serve you as quickly as possible.”

An estimated 268.000 New Jerseyans could have been without their benefits entirely if  President Joe Biden hadn’t signed a $1.9 trillion relief package extending several COVID-19 federal relief benefits through to September.

Those included a 13-week extension and unemployment for freelancers and part-time workers, as well as an infusion of $300 a week in added federal job relief.