This story was updated at 9:47 a.m. on April 23, 2020, to include more data on initial claims.
Since the first week of March, more than 42,000 people in Montgomery County have made an initial claim of unemployment, according to new state data released Thursday morning.
The number has declined the last two weeks after skyrocketing in late March, as the economic damage related to the spread of the coronavirus settled in.
During the second week of March, there were 245 initial claims from Montgomery County.
The number of claims soared to 3,941 the next week, then to 9,394 and 15,751 in successive weeks
The number has dropped the past two weeks. It was 9,548 last week and 6,938 this week.
Initial claim of unemployment refers to people filing for the first time, a figure released each week as an indicator of recent job losses.
A total of 42,071 people have filed initial claims in Montgomery County since the first week of March.
The county continues to have the second highest number of initial claims, behind Baltimore County, with 54,145. Kent County has had the fewst claims, 898, since the first week of March
Across the state, 47,545 people filed initial claims this week, according to data released by the Maryland Department of Labor on Thursday morning.
The state also had a decrease for the second week in a row, dropping 23% from the week before, when three were 61,770 claims.
State officials have said that the state had more claims in March than in all of 2019 and about 1,000 calls were being made every two hours.
Because of the influx of calls and website traffic, the state labor department’s systems were struggling and had to be updated.
More than 150 state employees have been reassigned and 100 new employees have been hired at the Labor Department. In partnership with a vendor, an additional 200 call and claim takers were also added.
On Monday, the Labor Department posted on Twitter that because of the high volume of claims it was receiving, it removed all deadlines for applicants to provide additional information or deliver supporting documentation.
On Friday, a new “one-stop” unemployment insurance applications for all types of claims will be available. Self-employed individuals and independent contractors will be able to file online using the application.
Call center hours were extended to 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.
Questions can be sent without waiting on hold to a new email address: ui.inquiry@maryland.gov.
Briana Adhikusuma can be reached at briana.adhikusuma@moco360.media.
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To see a timeline of major coronavirus developments in Maryland and Montgomery County, click here.
