Unemployment insurance claims in Clark County remain stubbornly high, but the number of claimants has been slowly dropping in the last few weeks, mostly due to food workers returning to work.
Total continued claims dropped to 15,705 last week from 16,115 the week before, according to Scott Bailey, regional economist for Southwest Washington. Regular continued claims were down by 353 claims, and almost half of that was accommodations and food services, he said.
Regular initial claims dropped from 701 to 602 claims, and a third of that was in the accommodations and food services industry.
While short-term unemployment is decreasing, there is also a growing long-term unemployment trend, Bailey said. Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) claims increased last week to 4,773 claims, up 160 from the week before.
“Compared with early- and mid-December, we’ve had roughly the same number of claims, but far fewer regular claims and more extended claims,” he said.
Another trend showed that women are still the majority of claimants, but for the first time in the regular claims category, more men than women are claiming unemployment. Women filed 2,360 continued regular claims last week, while men filed 2,451 claims.
“The reason women have been disproportionately hit has to do with occupations and industries they work in,” Bailey said, which includes accommodation and food services and health care. Women make up about 45 percent of the labor force, he said.
Statewide, workers filed 12,958 initial regular unemployment claims, which is down 7.7 percent from the prior week, according to the Washington Employment Security Department. All unemployment benefit categories were down 0.6 percent from the prior week.
