Initial jobless claims rise a bit in Clark County

Clark County’s labor market continued its slow recovery last week despite a small increase in initial unemployment insurance claims.

Weekly initial unemployment claims rose in the county by 18 percent from 924 to 1,086 last week. On the other hand, continued unemployment claims fell by about 1,000 claims in the county last week, which better represents the direction of our local job market, said Scott Bailey, regional economist for Southwest Washington.

“We’ve had blips in initial claims like this before that didn’t really amount to anything,” he said. “The 5 percent drop in regular continued claims — those have been on a steady decline for two to three months.”

The increases in initial claims came mostly from the manufacturing and accommodations and food services industries. Manufacturing claims increased from 45 to 118 last week, and accommodations and food services increased from 94 to 140.

Regular continued unemployment insurance claims decreased from 11,653 to 11,109 last week, and continued pandemic unemployment assistance claims also fell from 6,315 to 5,867. The decreases occurred in all industries, Bailey said.

“It’s a slow but steady rebound in the local job economy,” he said.

In Washington, initial claims were down by 0.9 percent last week, and continued claims fell about 4 percent from 579,503 to 556,669, according to a news release from the Washington Employment Security Department.

The total number of Washington residents who have filed initial claims and have received money reached over 1 million, almost a third of the state’s total labor force, according to the ESD. The ESD has paid out nearly $10 billion since the pandemic began.

Initial claims are still more than triple what they were before the pandemic, according to the news release.