New Hampshire jobless claims continue to drop
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New unemployment claims in New Hampshire dropped last week, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s weekly report, in a sign that the state’s post-pandemic economy and hiring is rebounding.
There were 526 new applications for state jobless benefits filed for the week that ended July 31 – a decline of 50 from the previous week, the federal agency reported on Thursday.
Meanwhile, continuing jobless claims – which lag behind a week – totalled 6,192 in the week ending July 24, a decrease of 1,410 over the previous week.
The state reported 28 new claims for federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance in the week that ended July 31, two less than the previous week, according to the report.
New Hampshire is one of 25 states that have ended participation in the PUA and other federal unemployment programs. But federal rules prevent the state from pulling the plug immediately on existing beneficiaries.
The state has distributed more than $1.8 billion in federal and state unemployment benefits to workers since March 2020, when the COVID-19 outbreak began.
New Hampshire’s jobless rate remained steady at 2.9% in June, according to the New Hampshire Employment Security, one of the lowest rates in the nation.
Nationally, there were 385,000 new claims filed in the week that ended July 31, a decrease of 14,000 from the previous week, according to the labor department.
Continuing claims increased by 366,000 to 2.93 million nationally for the week that ended July 24. That’s a new pandemic low, according to the federal agency.
An estimated 12.9 million Americans were still receiving state or federal jobless benefits in the week ending July 17, the agency reported.
This article was originally posted on New Hampshire jobless claims continue to drop
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