SC DEW: Decrease in initial unemployment insurance claims last week

(Courtesy: SC DEW/Facebook)

SOUTH CAROLINA (WOLO) – The South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce reported a decrease in initial unemployment insurance claims for last week.

According to the department, during the week of October 11 – 17, 3,619 people filed their initial insurance claims for unemployment.

That’s a decrease of 1,265 claims filed from the previous week of October 4 – 10, where 4,884 people filed.

On their intrastate map showing initial unemployment insurance claims by counties, Richland County had the highest number of claims in the state with 370.

This comes as a survey from WalletHub found South Carolina has the 8th fastest recovery for weekly unemployment claims in the United States.

SC DEW says since March 15, 763,312 initial claims have been filed.

The department has paid more than $4.4 billion in a combination of the following:

• Regular state Unemployment Insurance benefits
• Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (For the self-employed and others)
• Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation program ($600 per week)
• Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program (Extension of benefits for 13 weeks)
• Extended Benefits (Additional 16 weeks of benefits after PEUC)

The U.S. Department of Labor reported the lowest number of weekly jobless claims since March, with 787,000 claims last week.

Officials say that more than 23 million people are still claiming some form of unemployment assistance as of the week ending Oct. 3, which is more than 20 times what that figure was during the same week in 2019.