BOISE, Idaho — New claims for unemployment in Idaho increased 26 percent for the week ending June 27, according to the state Department of Labor.
A total of 5,417 initial claims were filed that week, which is 1,132 claims more than the previous week.
Over the past four weeks, the average number of new claims is 4,322 per week, an increase of 11 percent.
As for continued claims, the number of people who requested a benefit payment dropped by 7 percent from the previous week to 30,866. That marks the eighth consecutive week of declines.
The labor department reports that food services and accommodations represented 17 percent of total claims for week ending June 27. Manufacturing represented 15 percent, health care and social assistance 12 percent and retail 11 percent.
Breaking down the numbers by age, 26 percent of claims were for people ages 25 to 34. People under the age 25 claimed 22 percent, people ages 35 to 44 represented 20 percent and workers ages 45 to 54 accounted for 16 percent. Claims were evenly split between genders.
Since the COVID-19 state of emergency declaration, laid-off Idaho workers filed 162,560 initial claims for unemployment benefits during a 15-week period. That's 2.8 times the total number of initial claims filed in all of 2019 in just three months.
The department paid out $44.7 million in claims during the week of June 21-27, down from $52.8 million the week of June 14-20.
As of June 27, total benefit payments attributed to COVID-19 layoffs reached $567 million.
