During the week of April 11 – April 17, there were 13,216 initial regular unemployment claims (down 23.5 percent from the prior week) and 414,414 total claims for all unemployment benefit categories (down 3.3 percent from the prior week) filed by Washingtonians, according to the Employment Security Department (ESD).
- Initial regular claims applications are now 84 percent below weekly new claims applications during the same period last year during the pandemic.
- The 4-week moving average for initial claims remain elevated at 13,454 (as compared to the 4-week moving average of initial claims pre-pandemic of 6,071 initial claims) and remains at similar levels of initial claims filed during the Great Recession.
- Decreases in layoffs in Health Care and Social Assistance, Construction, Retail Trade and Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing & Hunting contributed to the decrease in regular initial claims last week.
- There were fewer individuals who filed for new claims because their benefit year had ended, also contributing to the decrease in regular initial claims.
- Initial claims applications for regular benefits, Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Assistance (PEUC), Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) as well as continued claims for regular benefits all decreased over the week.
In the week ending April 17, ESD paid out over $233 million for 299,100 individual claims. Since the crisis began in March 2020, ESD has paid more than $17.0 billion in benefits to over a million Washingtonians.
| Unemployment claim type | Week of April 11-17 | Week of April 4-10 | Week of March 28- April 3 |
| Regular Unemployment Insurance (UI) initial claims | 13,216 | 17,281 | 11,863 |
| Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) initial claims | 1,884 | 2,249 | 2,102 |
| Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) initial claims | 2,565 | 2,792 | 2,934 |
| Continued/ongoing weekly claims | 396,749 | 406,199 | 409,904 |
| Total claims | 414,414 | 428,521 | 426,803 |
Note: You can find detailed claims data anytime on the ESD website.
