SALT LAKE CITY (April 2, 2020) – As the effects of coronavirus continues to grip the workforce, Utah has seen an over 2400% increase in the number of new unemployment claims filed in comparison to this time last year.
For the week of March 22 to March 28, Utahn’s filed 28,560 new claims, which then require a weekly filing by each recipient. There were 24,424 weekly claims filed during that same week and a total of $3,972,938 paid in benefits.
“We are approaching more new claims in the last two weeks than the number of claims filed in
all of 2019,” said Kevin Burt, Unemployment Insurance Division director for the Utah
Department of Workforce Services. “The Unemployment Insurance Division staff continue to
work diligently to meet this unprecedented volume. Strategies continue to be implemented to
respond to this need, as well as the new benefits being described in the CARES Act, but with this
historic demand there will be some disruption in our normal service levels.”
Payments to individuals who filed during the week of March 15 to March 21 began going out on March 31 so those numbers will be reflected in next week’s report.
Additionally, 1,113 individuals ended their unemployment claima on March 21, 2020 and 1,508 ended their claim during the previous week.
The top three industries with the highest percentage of claims:
- Food Preparation and Serving – 16.6%
- Office and Administrative Support – 12.03%
- Management – 9.46%
The five counties with the highest number of new claims:
- Salt Lake – 41.83%
- Utah – 14.63%
- Davis – 9.17%
- Weber – 6.81%
- Washington – 6.06%
If an individual’s employment has been impacted by COVID-19 they should visit jobs.utah.gov/covid19.
