COLUMBUS – The number of first-time claims for unemployment benefits in Ohio grew for the fourth straight week to the highest level in nine months as the coronavirus pandemic continues to weigh down the state’s economy.
Ohioans filed 49,974 initial jobless claims last week, according to statistics from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, a 16% increase over the number of filings the week before. The number of weekly initial jobless claims has grown 68% since the beginning of the year.
The growth in claims comes amid a struggle at the agency to keep up with the demand while weeding out potentially fraudulent claims, such as those filed last year on behalf of Gov. Mike DeWine, his wife Fran, and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, along with thousands of other Ohioans.
The workload has grown so large that DeWine says the administration plans to bring in a private firm to speed up the processing of claims and the distribution of benefits.
“I’ve looked at this and really came to the conclusion that this is a massive job. We have to have someone from the private sector come in to handle that, to take that portion of a very, very large department, to take that portion over and really oversee that,” DeWine said Tuesday.
He said further details would be forthcoming in a few days.
Workers filed 262,999 continued claims for both traditional unemployment claims and claims for extended benefits last week, a slight decline from the week before. Those claims are considered a more accurate barometer of the economy.
The latest data also comes on the heels of a report that Ohio employers shed over 11,000 jobs in December, the first month for job losses since mid-summer, and that the state lost over 350,000 in 2020 due to lockdowns and other measures to contain the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19, which has infected over 800,000 Ohio residents.
The agency also paid out Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance to 144,894 Ohioans last week and announced that it is finalizing technological updates that will allow more than 95,000 additional individuals to begin claiming unemployment benefits this weekend. Workers eligible for these programs until March 13 also will receive $300 supplemental federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation payments approved by Congress in December.
Overall, nearly 4.8 million Americans are continuing to receive traditional state unemployment benefits. That is down from a staggering peak of nearly 25 million in May.