Newsoms’ job policy is working like a charm.
“Unemployment claims in California rose last week and have now soared to their highest level in nearly three months, an unsettling hint that the statewide job market has yet to bounce back from the economic side effects of the coronavirus.
California workers filed 68,556 initial claims for unemployment during the week that ended on Aug. 7, an increase from the 62,209 claims workers filed the week before, the U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday.
The jobless claims filed in California last week represented the largest number of filings since late May. California workers filed 72,000 initial claims for unemployment during the week that ended on May 29.
What other goal could he have by having a policy of lockdown businesses, killing off the oil and agriculture industry, limiting energy and water supplies? Of course he is looking to create unemployment—that is what his policies have done. As people and companies flee the State—the almond industry is leaving for Idaho—the Newsom economic job policies will create more poverty and joblessness.
California unemployment claims soar to highest total in three months
In contrast, national rate falls, down 12,000 from week before
By George Avalos, Bay Area News Group, 8/12/21
Unemployment claims in California rose last week and have now soared to their highest level in nearly three months, an unsettling hint that the statewide job market has yet to bounce back from the economic side effects of the coronavirus.
California workers filed 68,556 initial claims for unemployment during the week that ended on Aug. 7, an increase from the 62,209 claims workers filed the week before, the U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday.
The jobless claims filed in California last week represented the largest number of filings since late May. California workers filed 72,000 initial claims for unemployment during the week that ended on May 29.
In sharp contrast to the rising number of California filings, workers in the United States filed 375,000 unemployment claims last week, down 12,000 from the week before.
In recent weeks, experts had predicted that California’s job market would bounce back from coronavirus-linked economic setbacks.
Instead, California’s jobs recovery has lagged the nationwide employment upswing. The sluggish employment sector in the state has surprised some economists.
“It doesn’t make a lot of sense,” said Stephen Levy, director of the Palo Alto-based Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy. “It’s something of a mystery.”
Experts say a federal supplement of $300 a week has fattened the basic weekly unemployment benefit so it might make more sense to some workers to stay on the sidelines until the extra payment expires.
“Some people are not going back to work until the federal supplement ends,” Levy said.
The extra payment is slated to expire on Sept. 6.
“Yes, the supplement is a factor,” said Michael Bernick, an employment attorney with law firm Duane Morris and a former director of the state Employment Development Department.
Bernick believes other factors also are in play.
“Schools are only slowly reopening and there is even some reconsideration there about what will happen with the schools,” Bernick said. “There is a lack of child care, which is keeping people at home to take care of their kids.”
Making matters worse for jobless workers: the state EDD fumbled its attempts to pay unemployed workers on a timely basis — or pay them at all.
A broken phone center and glitch-hobbled website that was based on a creaky and outmoded computer language have frustrated the EDD’s quest to pay unemployment benefits to California workers who had lost their jobs by the millions as businesses were shut down to stop the spread of the virus.
Hotels, restaurants, and stores appear to be anxious to hire workers to fill positions as customers and travelers venture out. But anecdotes suggest that those employers are having the toughest time enticing workers to take their openings.
“Californians are not applying to fill entry-level, service, leisure and hospitality jobs,” Bernick said. “College-educated workers don’t appear to be attracted to these kinds of jobs.”
As a result, the jobs go unfilled, the workers remain unemployed, and hiring remains relatively sluggish in California and the Bay Area compared with the rest of the United States.
