Massachusetts — MONTHLY UNEMPLOYMENT CLAIMANT DATA

BOSTON, MA—March 17, 2022—Massachusetts had a total of 23,157 initial claims for regular Unemployment Insurance (UI) between February 6th and March 5th, 2022, a reduction of 5,329 claims from the previous four weeks. The largest decreases were seen in: Construction, down 2,945 claims; Administration & Waste, down 1,187 claims; and Food & Accommodation, down 983 claims.

Continued weeks claimed also decreased by a total of 1,503 from the previous month to 299,554. The largest decreases were seen in Food & Accommodation, down 3,443 claims and Healthcare & Social Assistance, down 2,168 claims.

The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program, which was implemented on May 21, 2020, had a total of three initial claims filed and 2,046 continued weeks claimed, a drop of 189 continued weeks claims from the four weeks prior. The PUA benefits program ended on September 4, 2021.

The Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), which was implemented on May 21, 2020, had a total of 146 initial claims. Continued weeks claimed dropped by 29 to 517. The PEUC program ended on September 4, 2021.

The federal/state Extended Benefits (EB) program which triggered off on July 17, 2021, had no change in initial claims from the previous month while total continued weeks claimed increased by eight claims.

The Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) which was implemented on May 21, 2020 and provided an additional $300 a week on top of regular benefits also ended on September 4, 2021.

NOTE: Following the termination of pandemic assistance (PUA, FPUC, PEUC) and long-term benefit (EB) programs, claims reports will be published in conjunction with the Massachusetts Unemployment and Job Estimates monthly releases, at mass.gov/lwd in the News and Updates section. Weekly UI claims reporting can be found at https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf.

Almost all industries saw a decrease in initial claims over the month of February. Similar to initial claims numbers last month, Construction (-2,945), Administrative and Waste Management (-1,187), and Food and Accommodation (-983) sectors saw major declines. In contrary, Transportation and Warehousing is the only industry to see an increase over the month of February of more than 300%.

While the Transportation and Warehousing industry takes the lead in the highest number of initial claims over the month, more than half of continued claims over this period come from the Construction, Administrative and Waste Management, Food and Accommodation, and Healthcare and Social Assistance industries. Those that saw the greatest increases over the month include Construction and Transportation and Warehousing. The industries that saw the largest drop in continued claims include Food and Accommodation and Healthcare and Social Assistance.

At the peak of the pandemic, the industries with the highest of continued claims were Construction, Retail Trade, Food and Accommodation, Health Care and Social Assistance, and Other Services. Construction and Administrative and Waste Management sectors see cyclical increases as expected during the early months of 2022. The steady decline in continued claims in other sectors could be due to the unemployed reaching their 26-week benefit limit or switching to different sectors. Almost one-fourth of all continued claims over the month of February came from the Construction industry, which saw an increase of more than 4,000 continued claims in February 2022.

DEMOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWNS Below we present demographic statistics on ethnicity, gender, and race for all those claimants who filed for a continued week. Due to the timing of data availability, the below statistics reflect average continued weeks claimed over four weeks, from the week ending February 5th to the week ending February 26th, 2022, rather than the week ending March 5th, 2022. All demographic figures are presented as a percentage of claimants who responded, excluding claimants for whom the information was not available.

REGULAR UI DEMOGRAPHIC FIGURES** Here we present the breakdown by gender, ethnicity, and race of continued claims for Regular UI between March 8th, 2020 and February 26th, 2022:

**The UI Extensions Demographics Figures series is discontinued because the weekly sample sizes of continued claims for the PEUC and EB programs, which covered the long term unemployed, are too small to be accurately represented graphically.

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