During the week of October 4 through October 10, there were 22,324 initial regular unemployment claims (up 44.1 percent from the prior week) and 476,735 total claims for all unemployment benefit categories (down 5.9 percent from the prior week) filed by Washingtonians, according to the Employment Security Department (ESD).
- Initial regular claims applications remain at elevated levels and are at 252 percent above last year’s weekly new claims applications.
- Continued claims for regular Unemployment Insurance, Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) initial claims and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) initial claims all decreased over the week.
- The increases in initial regular unemployment claims were primarily in manufacturing and accommodation and food service. Retail and transportation and warehousing also showed increases.
In the week ending October 10, ESD paid out over $153 million for 318,534 individual claims. Since the crisis began in March, ESD has paid more than $11.6 billion in benefits to over a million Washingtonians.
| Unemployment claim type | Week ofOctober 4-October 10 | Week ofSeptember 27-October 3 | Week ofSeptember 20-September 26 |
| Regular Unemployment Insurance (UI) initial claims | 22,324 | 15,496 | 17,734 |
| Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) initial claims | 3,900 | 4,151 | 4,439 |
| Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) initial claims | 8,736 | 9,211 | 8,894 |
| Continued/ongoing weekly claims | 441,865 | 477,850 | 499,293 |
| Total claims | 476,735 | 506,708 | 530,360 |
For more information on current claimants and claims processing progress, please go to the benefits data dashboard on the ESD website.