Another 28,500 Oregonians filed new unemployment claims last week, bringing the total number of jobs lost during the first six weeks of the coronavirus outbreak above 360,000, according to new data out Thursday from the Oregon Employment Department.
That works out to nearly 18 percent of all Oregon jobs, more than 1 in 6 altogether, underscoring the depth of the state’s economic catastrophe.
The number of new claims fell for the third consecutive week but it remains at a historic level. Claims are likely to spike again as Oregon begins processing applications from contractors and the self-employed.
Job losses remain concentrated in the hotel and restaurant sectors, hit hard by last month’s stay home order aimed at containing the outbreak. Other sectors shedding high number of jobs include health care, social assistance and retail.
The surge of layoffs has triggered a crisis at the employment department. The department relies on computer systems from the 1990s to process claims and was woefully unprepared when the coronavirus outbreak hit.
The old computer systems have triggered many erroneous claims denials, which the state has been unable to resolve. That, in turn, has overloaded the employment department’s phone systems making it nearly impossible for newly jobless Oregonians to resolve their claims.
The state has a backlog of close to 100,000 claims yet to be processed, many of them dating back to March. The employment department said Thursday it now has 610 staffers processing claims, up from a little more than 100 before the outbreak.
The employment department didn’t say Thursday how much it paid in benefits last week, but in prior weeks the total benefits topped $100 million. That’s a record pace but there is no immediate danger of the money running out.
Many of the new claims are paid with federal money Congress approved last month, and Oregon had $5 billion in its unemployment insurance trust fund before the crisis hit making it among the best funded of any state’s.
