Weekly initial jobless claims increased for the second straight week in the week ending July 25. Continuing claims, which lags initial jobless claims by one week, increased to 17.0 million in the week ending July 18. The increases in initial jobless claims and continuing claims indicate that the rehiring process are slowing as the number of coronavirus cases rises and some temporary business closures are now being extended.

The U.S. Department of Labor released the Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report for the week ending July 25. The number of initial jobless claims increased by 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted level of 1,434,000, from the previous week’s revised level of 1,422,000 claims. Initial jobless claims rose for the second straight week following 15 consecutive weeks of declines. The four-week moving average increased to 1,368,500, from a revised average of 1,362,000 in the previous week. Weekly new claims brought the 19-week’s total to 54.1 million.

Meanwhile, the number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment (in regular state programs), known as continuing claims, increased by 867,000 to a seasonally adjusted level of 17,018,000 in the week ending July 18. It was the first increase in continuing claims since the week ending May 23. The four-week moving average declined to 17,058,250 from the previous week’s revised average of 17,493,750. The seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate rose by 0.5 percentage point to 11.6% for the week ending July 18.

The U.S. Department of Labor also released the advanced number of actual initial claims under state programs without seasonal adjustments. The unadjusted number of advanced initial claims totaled 1,205,871 in the week ending July 25, a decrease of 171,054 from the previous week.

The chart below presents the top 10 states ranked by the number of advanced initial claims for the week ending July 25. California, Florida and New York had the most advanced initial claims. California led the way with 249,007 initial claims, followed by Florida with 87,062 initial claims and New York with 85,000 initial claims. Meanwhile, South Dakota, North Dakota and Wyoming had the least advanced initial claims across all the states.

Compared to the previous week, Virginia, Nevada and Indiana had the largest increases in advanced initial claims for the week ending July 25. Virginia reported an increase of 8,578 advanced initial claims. Nevada increased by 6,125 and Indiana increased by 2,698. California (-40,587), Georgia (-37,732) and Florida (-21,914) had the largest decreases in advanced initial claims.

Tags: continuing claims, COVID-19, initial claims, insured unemployment rate, jobless claims