OKLAHOMA CITY – The Oklahoma Employment Security Commission received a $1,875,335 grant April 8 from the U.S. Department of Labor to continue its Re-employment Services and Eligibility Assessments program.
The OESC has administered the grant program for many years “and will continue to do so while looking for opportunities to expand workforce services for job seekers in our state,” Shelley Zumwalt, executive director of the agency, told Southwest Ledger on April 8.
A focus for the agency is “partnering with programs that have training for critical occupations that are needed in the state – such as registered nurses, CDL/tractor-trailer truck drivers, computer support technicians, and software engineers – as well as providing robust case management throughout a claimant’s journey in the program, Zumwalt said.
RESEA grants totaling $189,493,817 – a $40 million increase over last year – were awarded to 49 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, the DOL announced.
The funding will strengthen the recipients’ unemployment insurance programs and provide customized workforce services to support individuals’ efforts to find employment through informed job searches, the agency said.
RESEA is an evidence-based program to help individuals who are receiving unemployment benefits return to work more quickly by providing assistance such as re-employment services, individual assessments, referrals to job opportunities and recruiting events, and information about other available workforce programs, training opportunities and services.
The program is critical to states’ broader workforce development strategies and is undergoing expansion to promote greater program equity and reach a larger share of individuals experiencing unemployment.
“Re-employment Services and Eligibility Assessments programs provide essential work search assistance to individuals in need while also getting people back to work faster in higher quality jobs,” said Acting Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training Angela Hanks. “These funds will help states grow their RESEA programs to bring more services to more individuals in need and help states prepare and respond to current and future labor market changes.”
Joblessness still at
pre-pandemic levels
Initial claims, continued claims, and the four-week “moving average” of first-time claims in Oklahoma increased, while the continued claims’ four-week moving average slightly declined, for the week ending March 26, the OESC reported on April 7.
“We are watching Oklahoma’s unemployment numbers closely as they have trended up over the last few weeks,” Zumwalt said. “We are likely seeing a return to more sustainable unemployment numbers after recently experiencing the lowest unemployment rates in the state and nation, combined with cyclical market events.”
Oklahoma’s economy and workforce “continue to thrive, and our unemployment rates remain below pre-pandemic levels,” she added.
Ÿ For the file week that ended March 26, the unadjusted number of initial claims totaled 2,946, an increase of 685 from the previous week.
Ÿ For the same file week, the less volatile four-week moving average of initial claims was 2,156, an increase of 377 from the previous week. (To smooth out volatility in the weekly initial claims data, a four-week moving average is used to assess trends.)
Ÿ The number of continued claims totaled 11,921, an increase of 299 from the previous week.
Ÿ The four-week moving average of continuing claims was 11,849 – two fewer than the previous week’s average.
The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate the week ending March 26 was 1.1%, unchanged from the previous week’s revised rate, the U.S. Labor Department reported.
Nationally, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims for the week ending April 2 was 166,000, down nearly 5,000 from the previous week’s revised level and better than analyst projections of 200,000, the U.S. DOL reported. It was the lowest figure since November 1968, and the second-lowest since weekly reporting began in January 1967.
The four-week moving average was 170,000, a decrease of 8,000 from the previous week’s revised average.
Continuing claims rose slightly to 1.52 million. This was two years after the number of claims reached an all-time high of 6.1 million in April 2020.
Employers are limiting layoffs in a tight labor market. Roughly 1.8 job openings are available for every unemployed worker, industry watchers report; the unemployment rate stood at 3.6% in March, just above the pre-pandemic level of 3.5%.