The number of new weekly jobless claims in New Jersey is slowly creeping back up, according to state and federal labor data, albeit far below March levels when a statewide shutdown first went into effect in a bid to stop the spread of COVID-19.
For the week ending June 20, 33,396 New Jerseyans filed for jobless claims, according to Thursday morning data from the U.S Department of Labor. For the week before, which ended on June 13, the state saw 26,392 residents file for unemployment. And the week before that, the state saw 23,166 jobless claimants.
But Thursday’s numbers are still a far cry from the apex raw jobless numbers when hundreds of thousands of people in the state were filing for benefits. At its peak in the first week of April, more than 214,000 New Jerseys sought jobless claims.
New Jersey’s unemployment rate clocked in at 15.2 percent in May, down from a record 16.3 percent the month before, according to the New Jersey Department of Labor.
New Jersey Commissioner for the Department of Labor and Workforce Development Robert Asaro-Angelo at Gov. Phil Murphy’s daily COVID-19 press briefing at the War Memorial in Trenton on May 21, 2020. – RICH HUNDLEY, THE TRENTONIAN
“Our goal remains to help as many people through the process of creating an account, applying for benefits, and claiming their weekly benefits as quickly as possible,” New Jersey Labor Commissioner Robert Asaro-Angelo said in Thursday morning statement.
Virtually all of the new claims were from workers who were laid off or furloughed since mid-March as a direct result of a host of restrictions put in place on what kinds of businesses could stay open, in an effort to curb the spread of the virus.
Those closures applied to dine-in restaurants, non-essential retaile, bars, casinos, malls, nail and hair salons, most forms of construction, and indoor and outdoor amusement activities such as golf courses, theme parks and gyms.
To date, nearly 1.3 million New Jersey residents are collecting unemployment, comprising roughly a third of the state’s labor pool.
That adds up to $8.2 billion in jobless benefits that have been paid out as of Thursday, most of it under an added $600 a week outlined by federal expansions, as well as unemployment aid for independent contractors out of work because of the pandemic, and residents who used up benefits leading into the pandemic.
State labor officials said they plan to borrow $1.7 billion from the federal government to cover the costs of jobless benefits between August and October.
All along, the unemployment system has been plagued with complaints about weeks of delays before jobless benefits are issued and outdated technology. Claimants have also been critical about difficulties with getting in touch with a live human being to assist with their claim.
In response, state labor officials said they contracted a new call center to handle the surge of claims, appeals to denials, and other inquiries.
“Early feedback from our new call center indicates many of the workers who have called have complex wage claims or we are waiting for federally required earnings records from another state or the applicant was denied unemployment benefits but has filed an appeal,” the labor commissioner said.
“Now that we have front-line agents performing essential intake functions, we have been able to shift more experienced claims agents exclusively to these complex cases.”
