Weekly Jobless Claims Down Across State, Up in North Central Washington

Weekly jobless claims in Washington are down by more than seven percent.

Numbers from the Employment Security Department also show an 83 percent drop in first time jobless claims from the same time last year during the pandemic.

In addition, its the sixth consecutive week that first time claims have reached a new pandemic low.

Meanwhile, first time claims are up in Chelan County while they doubled in Douglas and Okanogan Counties. The claims were down on Grant County. All of the county claims are still sharply down from last year during the pandemic.

During the week of July 11 – July 17, there were 5,061 initial regular unemployment claims (down 7.8 percent from the prior week) and 315,848 total claims for all unemployment benefit categories (down 7.2 percent from the prior week).

The 4-week moving average for initial claims is at 5,995 (as compared to the 4-week moving average of initial claims pre-pandemic of 6,071 initial claims).