During the week of April 25 – May 1, there were 10,507 initial regular unemployment claims (down 9.6 percent from the prior week) and 404,257 total claims for all unemployment benefit categories (down 0.9 percent from the prior week) filed by Washingtonians, according to the Employment Security Department (ESD).
- Initial regular claims applications are now 90 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 13,158 (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 Retail Trade and Educational Services contributed to the decrease in regular initial claims last week.
- Initial claims applications for regular benefits, Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Assistance (PEUC) and continued claims for regular benefits all decreased over the week while initial claims applications for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) increased slightly over the week.
In the week ending May 1, ESD paid out over $230 million for 309,168 individual claims. Since the crisis began in March 2020, ESD has paid more than $17.5 billion in benefits to over a million Washingtonians.
| Unemployment claim type | April 25- May 1 | April 18-24 | April 11-17 |
| Regular Unemployment Insurance (UI) initial claims | 10,507 | 11,629 | 13,216 |
| Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) initial claims | 1,855 | 1,822 | 1,884 |
| Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) initial claims | 2,262 | 2,339 | 2,565 |
| Continued/ongoing weekly claims | 389,633 | 392,211 | 396,749 |
| Total claims | 404,257 | 408,001 | 414,414 |
Note: You can find detailed claims data anytime on the ESD website.
