OKLAHOMA CITY – First-time jobless claims are still declining but continuing claims have been rising, according to the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission (OESC), which reports having paid more than $5 billion in unemployment benefits since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020.
Those payments “significantly surpassed the past 10 years combined,” OESC Executive Director Shelley Zumwalt said.
Although the agency has experienced an increase in continued claims for the last six weeks, the OESC “remains focused on our re-employment efforts to help claimants by providing them with employment opportunities through our ongoing services and special career fairs we are hosting across the state,” Zumwalt said.
The OESC held a career fair in Lawton on May 14. The City of Lawton held a job fair at City Hall on April 29, and OESC is hosting a virtual career fair through May 28 for all Oklahomans. Individuals looking for jobs can register at http://regpack.com/reg/ oesc21.
For the week ending May 8, the advance, unadjusted number of initial claims totaled 10,551, a decrease from the previous week’s revised level of nearly 11,000.
The advance unadjusted number of continued claims totaled 31,469, an increase of 6,338 from the previous week. And the four-week moving average of continued claims was 27,945, an increase of 1,469 from the previous week’s revised average.
To smooth out the volatility in the weekly initial claims data, a four-week moving average is used to assess trends.
Nationally, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims during the same period was 473,000, a decrease of 34,000 from the previous week’s revised level, the U.S. Department of Labor reports. The four-week moving average was 534,000, a decrease of 28,250 from the previous week.
For the week ending May 1, the U.S. DOL reported the advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.6%, a slight decrease from the previous week’s revised rate.