New claims for jobless aid continue to spike, with Pierce County among the highest

The new coronavirus outbreak continues to damage Washington’s economy.

New claims filed last week for unemployment benefits totaled 181,975 — a 3,513 percent increase over the same period a year ago and a 41 percent increase over the previous week.

The state Employment Security Department, which released the figures on Thursday, said the number of new claims was seven times higher than during the peak of the Great Recession of 2008-2009.

While all counties experienced a spike in initial claims, Pierce was among the four highest. New claims filed from Pierce County increased from 14,730 to 22,145 — up 50 percent from the week before.

The department’s commissioner, Suzi LeVine, said the statewide numbers suggest that “more and more businesses and individuals are complying with Gov. [Jay] Inslee’s emergency proclamation to stay at home, not gather in private or public in large groups, and shut down their firms if they are not essential.

“This virus is having a profoundly negative impact on our economic health, and Washington businesses and workers are hurting like never before,” LeVine said in a written statement.

LeVine acknowledged that many people are having problems filing new claims.

“While many have been able to file new and continued claims, we know this deluge of demand has made it challenging for many more to do so. To help people access benefits, we recently improved our ESD website, esd.wa.gov, to assist individuals applying for unemployment benefits online,” LeVine said.

“We also increased our capacity to help more people over the phone by adding hundreds of additional staff to our Unemployment Insurance team and by expanding our call center hours to include Saturdays. We’re using Sundays to return calls,” she said.

There were 6,804 claims in Thurston County, an increase of 2,096, or 44.5 percent.

In Benton County, there were 4,294 claims, an increase of 1,280, or 42.5 percent. There were 1,648 claims in Franklin County, an increase of 544, or 49.3 percent.

In Whatcom County, there were 6,268 new claims, an increase of 1,840 from the week before, a 41.6 percent increase.

This story was originally published April 2, 2020 at 10:48 AM with the headline "New claims for jobless aid continue to spike, with Pierce County among the highest."