New jobless claims nearly double in Garden State amid COVID-19 rebound

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The number of new jobless claims in New Jersey nearly doubled from week to week, federal data shows, which state labor officials say stems from newly furloughed state workers and school employees laid off when the school year ended.

Thursday data from the U.S. Department of Labor showed that 46,711 New Jerseyans filed for unemployment during the week ending July 4. For the week ending June 27, there were 27,992 state residents who sought jobless claims.

During the week prior to that, which ended June 20, 33,396 people filed for jobless claims. For the week ending June 13, 26,392 New Jerseyans filed for unemployment.

“Last week’s initial claim total is the highest number of single-week applicants the Department of Labor and Workforce Development has recorded in eight weeks,” reads a Thursday morning statement.

New state unemployment claims had gradually slid since a high of nearly 70,000 for the week ending May 9.

But an explosion of new COVID-19 cases in states that rushed reopening – like Texas and Florida – and a slowly expanding spread of the virus in New Jersey, have triggered fears of a sluggish economic recovery as lockdowns put in place drag on.

New Jersey’s unemployment rate clocked in at 15.2 percent in May, down from a record 16.3 percent the month before, according to the NJDOL.

Nearly 1.4 million New Jerseyans are collecting jobless benefits, the state labor department said.

Since mid-March, the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development paid out $9.9 billion in jobless benefits, most of it from the $600 per week in added federal jobless benefits under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act.

“The number of people in need is staggering,” New Jersey Labor and Workforce Development Robert Commissioner Robert Asaro-Angelo said in a Thursday statement. “We won’t let up until every claim has received a determination, every question has been answered and every claimant has been served.”

Under a deal between the Murphy administration and the Communications Workers of America New Jersey, the state’s largest public worker union would furlough many of its 35,000 members through July 31, which could save hundreds of millions of dollars for the state and allow it to avoid permanent layoffs, according to the administration.

July 1 is when the added $600 in CARES Act money is slated to run out, though talks are underway in Congress to extend those payments.

But as Gov. Phil Murphy halts plans to lift more restrictions amid a rise in COVID-19 cases, and states in the south and southwestern parts of the nation once again enact restrictions, a truly sluggish economic recovery begins to set in.

“People who were furloughed” months ago “were confident that they were going to get their jobs back … and the data has shown that in fact our recovery is going to be slower than people were hoping,” said Christopher Hayes, a labor professor at Rutgers University.

Hayes said that the rush to reopen across the Sun Belt – namely allowing bars and restaurants to resume indoor operations – prompted a comeback of the virus.

“Bars are effectively closed again because people figured out very quickly when you allow bars to get open at near full capacity … they get sick,” he said. “Things are going to have to stay in a prolonged partial shutdown for an extended period of time.”

“Business owners … that were trying to keep people on the payroll because they actually care about their employees, no small business can do that indefinitely,” he added.