Unemployment claims in California fell last week compared to the prior reporting period, yet despite the improvement, 8.6 million workers in the state have filed jobless claims since the government launched coronavirus-linked business shutdowns six months ago.
An estimated 230,200 California workers filed first-time claims for unemployment during the week that ended Sept. 12, down 13,200 from the 243,400 who filed jobless claims in the week ending on Sept. 5, the U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday.
The decline was a welcome respite that snapped a string of three consecutive weeks of rising unemployment claims in California.
Nationwide, unemployment claims also declined, falling 33,000 to a new level of 860,000 for the week that ended on Sept. 12, down from 893,000 for the week ending Sept. 5.
In a sign of struggles for the statewide economy, California accounted for a stunning 27% of all the jobless claims filed in the United States last week.
California’s share of the initial unemployment claims nationwide was unchanged from the week of Sept. 5, but higher than the 25% for the week of Aug. 29.
The 27% figure is the highest share of unemployment claims for California during the six months of business shutdowns. California has only 11% of the nation’s workforce, which means the state is enduring a dramatically outsized share of the jobless claims in the United States.
