AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine Department of Labor released its weekly report of unemployment statistics and the numbers are encouraging.
About 1,000 initial claims for unemployment and 200 initial claims for federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) were filed for the week ending May 22, 2021.
This is the lowest number of initial claims since March 14, 2020. The next week initial claims skyrocketed, going from 735 to over 21,000. At their worst, initial claims peaked at 30,889 in the week of April 4, 2020.
MDOL spokesperson Jessica Picard says, "Continued claims across all programs (state UI, EB, PUA, and PEUC) are near the lowest point throughout the pandemic though slightly above what we saw in the late fall of 2020."
From April of 2020 to April of 2021 Maine's unemployment rate dropped from 9.1% to 4.8%.
While numbers are improving it seems like "help wanted" signs are everywhere. According to Picard, "We have been hearing from some employers that they are having a hard time finding enough workers, especially for the summer season. It can always be a challenge to ramp up hiring for these types of seasonal jobs, due to the patchwork of workers it often takes."
Weekly certifications must be filed by claimants every week, and work search requirements must be met to continue receiving unemployment benefits. The MDOL reinstated these requirements on May 23.
Between March 15, 2020, and May 22, 2021, the Maine Department of Labor has paid out nearly $2.2 billion in federal and state unemployment benefits, and over 4 million weekly certifications were filed.
Claims data can be found here: https://www.maine.gov/labor/cwri/ui.html
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