Montgomery County’s unemployment more than tripled in April, hitting 8.5%, with 45,277 people out of work, according to new figures released this week.
In March, the county’s unemployment rate was 2.8%, with 15,905 people unemployed.
The county’s rate was 2.9% in February, 2.8% in February, 2.4% in January and 2.6% in December. The spike in April reflects the first full month of restrictions from the coronavirus pandemic, including government orders to temporarily close businesses, and their effect on the economy.
According to the Maryland Department of Labor, more than 486,500 people were employed in April. In March, more than 549,600 people were employed.
The statewide unemployment rate was 10.1% for April — nearly triple March’s rate of 3.5%. More than 306,000 people were out of work across the state in April.
Although Montgomery County has consistently had the second highest number of initial jobless claims during the pandemic, it ranked 21st out of 24 jurisdictions with the highest unemployment rates in April.
Calvert, Howard, and St. Mary’s were the three counties that had lower rates in April than Montgomery. Allegany County had the highest unemployment rate in Maryland in April, at 14.1%.
In Montgomery County, 99,169 people have filed initial jobless claims since the first week of March.
Last week, 6,409 people filed initial claims — a 16.1% decrease in a week. The week before that, there was a 2.7% decrease, to 7,638 initial claims.
During the second week of May, the number of claims decreased by 24%, which followed a 46% decrease a week earlier.
A week prior to that, there was a hike of 242%, partially because the state began reporting additional claims through two federally enacted unemployment programs — Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC).
Of the claims filed last week, 4,810 were regular initial claims. The rest were made through PUA (1,527) and PEUC (72).
Montgomery County had the second highest number of initial unemployment claims behind Prince George’s County which had 7,176.
Briana Adhikusuma can be reached at briana.adhikusuma@moco360.media.
