Unemployment surges in Florida after September dip

Following several weeks trending downward, the number of unemployment claims in Florida in the past week saw a notable jump, according to Florida Department of Economic Opportunity data released this week.

There have been a total of 4.155 million jobless claims filed with the state since the coronavirus outbreak gripped the state in March. That’s up by 87,000 from the previous week. It’s the biggest surge in new weekly jobless claims since the summer.

The latest increase is up 21,000 over the 66,000 new claims filed in the last full week of September. The previous month’s weekly increases usually hovered around 60,000 new filings each week and showed signs of a slow-down in jobless claims caused by the pandemic.

Prior to September, it was not unusual to see unemployment claims jump by more than 100,000 in one week during summer months. During the peak of the pandemic, those weekly figures surged to as many as 500,000 jobless claims on a weekly basis as Florida businesses instituted layoffs, furloughs and even outright closures due to the spread of the disease.

Of the total claims filed in Florida since the beginning of the pandemic, 3.998 million are unique claims, meaning they were not duplicates.

More than 3.9 million total claims have been processed in Florida, 99.1% of all claims submitted to the state.

There have been 2.025 million total claims paid, 97.3% of eligible claims.

There are now 2.223 million Floridians eligible for state reemployment assistance, federal pandemic emergency unemployment compensation and federal pandemic unemployment assistance. Another 665,946 people in the state are not eligible for state or federal reemployment assistance.

The total cost of the federal and state pandemic jobless assistance has now grown to $17.029 billion. O that, $11.716 is from federal pandemic unemployment compensation and lost wage assistance. Another $1.121 billion is funded by federal pandemic emergency unemployment compensation. Still, another $807.52 million is being picked up by federal pandemic unemployment assistance.

Florida’s reemployment assistance program has accounted for $3.383 billion paid in benefits. That’s an increase of $71 million over the previous week.