Six months after the coronavirus began shutting down much of the U.S. economy, jobless claims remained at historically high levels for the 26th consecutive week last week even as new state unemployment figures showed continued job gains in Tennessee and Georgia.
The jobless rate in August fell by 1.2 percentage points in Tennessee to 8.5% and dropped by 2.1 percentage points in neighboring Georgia to 5.6%. Both states reported continued job gains this summer as the economy reopened and rebounded from the COVID-19 shutdowns this spring. But unemployment remains nearly twice as high as what it was a year ago and jobless claims continued to outpace any pre-COVID era levels.
"The recovery has actually been stronger than I anticipated and I think it will be sustained, but it's going to take a while to recover the jobs we lost in this COVID recession," said Jeff Humphreys, director of the Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia.
Tennessee added 22,600 jobs from July to August and Georgia added about 22,000 jobs in the same period, according to job figures released on Thursday. But there were still 142,600 fewer jobs in Tennessee last month than a year ago and last week, 10,771 Tennesseans, including 492 in Hamilton County and 171 in Bradley County, filed initial claims for jobless aid after losing their jobs, down 935 from the previous week. In Georgia, which has recovered about 65% of the jobs initially lost in April, about 42,000 unemployed workers filed for jobless benefits last week, down about 8,000 from the week before.
Jobless in August
* 5.6% - Georgia, down from 7.7% in July* 8.5% - Tennessee, down from 9.7% in July* 8.4% - U.S. average, down from 10.2% in JulySources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development, Georgia Department of Labor
"With an unemployment rate of less than half of what we registered in April and more than double the jobs available on our state job website, Georgia is a leader in job potential that will continue to drive down the unemployment rate and get Georgians on the road to economic recovery," Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said.
Nationwide, the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell last week to 860,000, a historically high number of people that illustrates the broad economic damage still taking place nine months after the first case of COVID-19 was detected in the U.S.
The Labor Department said Thursday that U.S. jobless claims fell by 33,000 from the previous week and that 12.6 million are collecting traditional unemployment benefits, compared with just 1.7 million a year ago.
The pandemic has delivered a colossal shock to the economy. Until the pandemic upended the operations of American companies, from factories to family diners, weekly jobless aid applications had never exceeded 700,000 in the U.S. They've topped 700,000 for 26 consecutive weeks.
"As time during the pandemic seems to both race ahead and stand still, new jobless claims have remained historically elevated," said Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst for Bankrate.com. "While there has been continued posturing among officials in Washington regarding a new economic relief measure, millions of Americans looking for help have nothing to show for it."
Unemployed persons eligible or jobless benefits were receiving an extra $600 a week in federal supplemental payments through the end of July, but those benefits were not renewed by Congress. The Federal Emergency Management Agency granted $44 billion in extra jobless benefits for six weeks, starting Aug. 1. But those benefits have now also expired for many jobless workers.
Last week, the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development said the state paid $141.4 million in benefits to 264,202 claimants - the lowest overall payment level in six months.
"Layoffs remain widespread and a historically high number of individuals are still receiving some type of jobless benefits," Nancy Vanden Houten, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, wrote in a research report. "Failure on the part of policymakers to enact another fiscal relief package poses significant downside risks to the economy and labor market as the recovery appears to be losing momentum."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6340.