California workers filed fewer first-time claims for unemployment last week, marking the second straight week for a reduction in the pace of filings, a hopeful sign in a time of coronavirus-linked business shutdowns, federal officials reported Thursday.
An estimated 228,500 workers in California filed initial unemployment claims during the week that ended on Aug. 1, down about 16,000 from the 244,700 who filed first-time claims during the week ending on July 25, the U.S. Labor Department reported.
Despite the improvement, Califonia workers continue to file claims at a pace of more than a million a month.
During the four most recent weeks, 1.05 million initial unemployment claims have been filed in California, an analysis of the government reports shows.
It’s been nearly two months since the pace of first-time filings was below 1 million. During the four weeks that ended on June 13, California workers filed 929,000 initial unemployment claims.
Since state and local governments began to order wide-ranging business shutdowns to combat the spread of the coronavirus, workers statewide have filed 7.31 million unemployment claims, this news organization’s analysis of the Labor Department report shows.
