State unemployment claims continue to fall

The reopening of New Hampshire’s economy continues to pick up steam, according to the latest unemployment claims numbers released Thursday morning.

Continuing claims fell by 7.3%, to 85,994, for the week ending June 20 – the week that the stay at home order expired.

It was a sharper percentage drop than the preceding week. And though that is still more than four times the number of unemployed people before the pandemic hit in mid-March, it also includes self-employed individuals who couldn’t previously collect benefits, and that accounts for roughly 10 percent the Department revealed last week.

In early May, the number of claims totaled 116,768.

Also encouraging is that new claims for the week ending June 27 also fell, to 4,838, a 10.6% drop.

New Hampshire is improving at a better rate then the nation.

More from this section

Most popular girl names in the 80s in New Hampshire

Nationally, 1.43 million individuals filed initial claims, a 3.7% decline from the previous week, bringing the total to nearly 48 million who have initially filed since the pandemic began.

The official national unemployment rate – also released Thursday – fell to 11.1%, down from 13.3% in May, a gain of 4.8 million jobs in the course of the month, but the data was gathered in early June, before the resurgence COVID-19 in mostly southern and western states.

•••

These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.