Unemployment Continued Claims Hit Record High

While the number of new unemployment claims per week has decreased the past two weeks, the number of continued claims filed continues to rise.

Continued claims are filed by people who have already filed an initial claim and remain unemployed. Last week continued claims were over 71,000, a Nebraska record.

Earlier this year, continued claims usually feel between 5000 and 7000 each week. The continued claims number doesn’t include all people who are unemployed, as some, like recent graduates, may not be eligible for benefits.

Grace Johnson is Public Information Officer of the Nebraska Department of Labor. She said the DOL is not yet seeing large numbers of people stop claiming benefits.

“With the number of continued weeks claimed still increasing, I can’t say that we’ve really seen that yet. People aren’t required to report why they stopped claiming. And so at this point that’s not something we have a lot of information on. But we know that, like I said, the people filing week to week is still on the rise.”

Johnson expects as business start to reopen, continued weeks claimed will drop.

The Department of Labor also collects job postings from around the state, and employers in healthcare, manufacturing, and the department of corrections are still hiring.