Coronavirus: California unemployment claims fall to two-month low

May 28--The number of California workers who filed unemployment claims last week has fallen to the lowest level in two months but still was five times greater than the levels typical before the onset of government-ordered business shutdowns amid the coronavirus outbreak.

An estimated 212,300 California workers filed first-time claims for unemployment benefits last week, the U.S. Labor Department reported on Thursday. That was the lowest number of filings since the week that ended on March 21, when California workers filed 186,300 first-time claims for unemployment benefits.

Last week, 2.12 million workers in the United States filed first-time unemployment claims, down from the 2.45 million workers nationwide who filed claims the prior week, the Labor Department reported. More than 40 million workers have filed jobless claims since the pandemic began leveling the national economy. The U.S. jobless rate in April was 14.7 percent.

Since state and local government officials began to impose an array of business shutdowns throughout California, 4.66 million workers have filed first-time jobless claims with the state's Employment Development Department through last week. The California jobless rate was 15.5 percent in April.

Over the four most recent weeks, California workers have filed 986,000 first-time claims for unemployment benefits. That's the first time since the week of March 21 that this four-week number has fallen below 1 million.

Despite the improvement, the totals for the most recent week are still five times as great as the number for a typical week in 2020, prior to the start of the business shutdowns.

"Most striking is how little the additional job losses and economic devastation seem to matter anymore," said Michael Bernick, a Milken Institute fellow and a former director of the state EDD. "The Bay Area public health officials remain in control and have made clear in press conferences and advisories this week that the economy will reopen when they and their colleagues determine, not a minute before."

In the Bay Area and state, job losses have devastated the hotel, restaurant, retail, and airline sectors.

The tech sector suffered tiny job losses during April, the most recent monthly report on the job market revealed last week.

Now, Bernick is concerned that the fallout resulting from the deadly bug's impact on the economy in California could infect a widening array of industries.

"The next big hits may be coming in white-collar jobs," Bernick said. "Office jobs, health care, educational services, even government jobs could be next."

Bernick said public health officials aren't mindful enough of the economic destruction unleashed by coronavirus-linked shutdowns that were imposed to help corral the coronavirus.

"We are cheerfully told that 'we are all in this together'," Bernick said. "We may have reached a point of no return in how numb we've become to job losses."

While unemployment claims continue to pour into the EDD offices, many California workers say they have been unable to reach the agency or even launch their first-time claims for jobless benefits.

Bill Scozzola, a Gilroy resident who with his wife operates Favorites Kettle Corn, said he and his wife have been unable to reach the state labor department for about a month.

"The EDD wasn't prepared for this," Scozzola said. "They need to fix this. We need help. We have to pay our bills."

EDD officials said this week that they have launched a "mass hiring" effort to recruit 1,800 people to work for the state agency on a temporary basis. Those recruits would be in addition to the roughly 3,000 EDD workers in the agency's unemployment insurance unit.

"We've been left high and dry," Scozzola said. "It's very frustrating. You can never find out what's going on. You can't talk to a human being. The governor keeps talking about how this and that is being done. It's time to help the people who haven't gotten anything."

___

(c)2020 the Palo Alto Daily News (Menlo Park, Calif.)

Visit the Palo Alto Daily News (Menlo Park, Calif.) at www.paloaltodailynews.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.