COLUMBUS – The number of Ohioans filing for first-time unemployment benefits dropped for the third straight week even while the number of cases of COVID-19 continue to climb.
The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services reported Thursday that 25,952 initial jobless claims were filed during the week that ended on August 1, 7% fewer than the week before, just as a critical $600 weekly federal jobless payment expired.
The number of Ohioans filing continued jobless claims also declined for the third consecutive week to 404,434.
Although the state reported 1,199 new confirmed and probable cases of the virus on Wednesday – bringing the total number of Ohioans who have been infected since the pandemic began to over 96,000 – the number of active cases has declined by 2,114 in the past week to 19,759.
The total number of initial jobless claims filed in Ohio over the last 20 weeks is 1.58 million and the state has paid out more than $5.8 billion in unemployment compensation.
The agency has issued more than $4.9 billion in Pandemic Unemployment Assistance payments to more than 503,000 PUA claimants, such as self-employed and freelance workers, who traditionally do not qualify for unemployment benefits.
Nearly 1.2 million laid-off Americans applied for state unemployment benefits last week, evidence that the coronavirus keeps forcing companies to slash jobs, but the number of new claims were down by 249,000 from the previous week after rising for two straight weeks.
The Labor Department’s report marked the 20th straight week that at least 1 million people have sought jobless aid.
Before the pandemic hit hard in March, the number of Americans seeking unemployment checks had never surpassed 700,000 in a week, not even during the Great Recession of 2007-2009.