The number of people filing for unemployment in Montgomery County increased last week after four weeks of declines, according to figures released Thursday morning.
Last week, 7,047 people filed initial jobless claims in the county — a 10% increase in a week. The preceding weeks had decreases of 16%, 3%, 24%, and 46%.
Since the first week of March, 106,216 people in the county filed initial unemployment claims.
Those drops followed a sharp increase of 242% in late April. The spike then was partially because the state began reporting additional claims through two federally enacted programs — Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC).
It was not immediately clear why the county’s claims increased last week.
The county’s unemployment rate more than tripled to 8.5% in April, with 45,277 people out of work, according to figures released last week by the Maryland Department of Labor.
The county’s unemployment rate in March was 2.8%, with 15,905 people unemployed.
In April, the state’s unemployment rate nearly tripled to 10.1% — more than 306,000 people were out of work.
Across the state, 53,464 people filed initial jobless claims last week — a 24% increase from the week prior.
Of the claims filed in the county last week, 1,366 were filed through PUA and PEUC.
Other jurisdictions in the state also had high numbers of unemployment claims.
Montgomery County usually has the second highest number of claims each week behind Prince George’s County. But last week, three jurisdictions had higher numbers of claims: Prince George’s County (8,221), Baltimore County (7,308) and Baltimore City (7,240).
On June 7, the state Labor Department began providing live claim agents from noon to 4 p.m. on Sundays. That expanded the availability of claims agents to seven days a week.
The state also installed a new Interactive Voice Response system and callback system on June 5 to provide a more efficient process for people trying to file claims by phone.
Briana Adhikusuma can be reached at briana.adhikusuma@moco360.media.
