Oregon’s total unemployment claims rise but processing catching up

MEDFORD, Ore.– The U.S. Department of Labor announced unemployment insurance claims hit the 30 million mark nationally in the six week period since jobs began to drop off in mid-March. Last week, the department recorded another 3.87 million claims for unemployment adding to the worst employment crisis in U.S. history.

In Oregon, the state received another 28,500 initial claims last week adding to the more than 300,000 claims since this crisis began. However, Oregon’s Employment Department is beginning to catch up with processing the hundreds of thousands of unemployment claims.

The department says in the past three weeks its been able to process more initial claims than its received.

“We’ve ended up processing about three-quarters of all the claims we’ve received so far,” said Guy Tauer, regional economist.

In southern Oregon, Jackson County is the hardest hit by the numbers with more than 11,700 claims since mid-March. Josephine County had nearly 4,000 claims in this time. Klamath County nearly 3,000. Coos County 3,500 and Curry and Douglas County at less than a thousand, respectively.

There are more expected though, as claims continue to get processed. Sectors that have been hit hardest in Jackson County have been food service, health care, retail and manufacturing.

Tauer says in 2008 Oregon had more than 129,000 continued claims. This year, that number reaches 217,000.

“But you have to remember that was a much longer time period than it took to get to that point,” said Tauer. “So it was more pain spread out over a longer time period.”

The numbers are significant, however, Tauer says its too early to tell what might happen next. It depends on how people and governments will react in the next year on whether the economy bounces back quickly or takes a little longer.

“There’s kind of two sides to it, its the regulatory side and what restrictions are reduced at what point and what is the response by shoppers and consumers,” said Tauer.

Economists are still waiting on all of the data from April which should be made available by May in order to see the full effects of what the pandemic has done to our economy.

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