Initial Unemployment Claims Continue to Fall

Initial claims for unemployment filed by Montgomery County residents continued to fall. During the week that ended Feb. 27, 1,304 residents filed, which is about 100 fewer than the 1,410 county residents who filed initial claims during the week that ended Feb. 20. During the week that ended Feb. 13, 2.899 residents filed initial claims, according to the Maryland Department of Labor (DOL).

Initial claims filed throughout the state remained about the same. During the week that ended Feb. 27, 12,124 Marylanders filed initial claims. During the week that ended Feb. 20, 12,283 Marylanders filed initial claims.  During the week that ended Feb. 13, 28,927 Marylanders filed initial claims for unemployment.

Maryland gained 4,600 jobs and the unemployment rate dropped to 6.3% in January, which is the same as in December. This is the lowest unemployment rate in the state since the beginning of the pandemic, according to DOL.

The national unemployment rate was 6.3% in January, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That federal office announced on March 3 that annual average unemployment rates rose throughout the country during  2020. The U.S. jobless rate increased by 4.4 percentage points from the prior year to 8.1%. “The deterioration in the labor market in 2020 reflected the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and efforts to contain it,” according to the BLS.

In 2019, Maryland’s unemployment rate was 3.5%. At the end of 2020, it was 6.8%, according to BLS.

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Initial Unemployment Claims Drop By Half in Montgomery County and Maryland

About Suzanne Pollak

Suzanne is a freelance reporter with Montgomery Community Media. She has over 35 years professional experience writing for newspapers, magazines, non-profit newsletters and the web.

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