The Employment Security Department reports another weekly decrease in u unemployment claims filings.
During the week of September 27 through October 3, there were 15,496 initial regular unemployment claims (down 12.6 percent from the prior week) and 506,708 total claims for all unemployment benefit categories (down 4.5 percent from the prior week) filed by Washingtonians, according to the Employment Security Department (ESD).
- Initial regular claims applications remain at elevated levels and are at 157 percent above last year’s weekly new claims applications.
- Initial claims applications for regular Unemployment Insurance, continued claims for regular Unemployment Insurance and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) initial claims all decreased over the week while Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) initial claims increased.
The following table shows filings for recent weeks.
Overall claims remain well above pre-pandemic levels.
