For Immediate Release
Date: February 18, 2021
Contact: Office of Government, Policy and Public Relations - cdle_pr@state.co.us
State Labor Dept. Update for the Week Ending February 13th: UI Claims and Reemployment Support
(DENVER) -- Today the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE) reported that an estimated 12,151 regular initial unemployment claims were filed the week ending February 13th. Since mid-March 2020, an estimated total of 818,005 regular initial unemployment claims have been filed. There were also 8,000 Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) initial claims filed for the week ending February 13th. (Note: These are reopened claims after a break in weekly continued claim filings, not new PUA claims.)
For the week ending February 6th, a combined total of 184,755 continued claims were filed from the regular UI (69,993), PUA (67,481), and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) (47,281) programs. CDLE estimates those continued claims were filed by approximately 129,181 individuals (63,459 for regular UI; 39,955 for PUA, and 25,767 for PEUC). ** Weekly initial and continued claims figures can be viewed in the attached PDF at the bottom of this press release.
Additional data:
Benefits paid since March 29, 2020:
Weekly amounts for non regular UI programs can be viewed in the attached PDF at the bottom of this press release.
Regular UI: $2.67 Billion
Week ending February 13: $26.3 Million
Pandemic Unemployment Assistance
(gig workers/self-employed): $1.11 Billion
Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation
($600/weekly UI benefits to eligible claimants, CARES Act;
$300/weekly UI benefits to eligible claimants, CAA): $2.71 Billion
Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation
(extends unemployment benefits by up to 13 weeks, CARES Act; extends additional 11 weeks, CAA): $417.2 Million
State Extended Benefits
(extends unemployment benefits an additional 13 weeks): $30.0 Million
Lost Wages Assistance
($300/weekly UI benefits to eligible claimants, fall 2020): $389.2 Million
Total: $7.33 Billion
Helping Coloradans with Reemployment Support:
CDLE and its partners hold regular, no-cost training that can help unemployed Coloradans get rehired. There are nearly 80,000 jobs available right now in ConnectingColorado.com, the state’s jobs database. A sampling of events is below and a complete list of events, workshops and training opportunities is available on the CDLE website.
Trainings and Resources for Job Seekers
February 22, 9:00 - 11:00: Emotional Intelligence
February 23 , 9:00 am - 11:00 am: Interviewing Part 1
February 24, 10:00 am - 4 pm: Statewide Virtual Job Fair
February 25, 1:30 pm - 3:30 pm: Resumes Part 1
February 26, 1:30 pm - 3:30 pm: Phone Interviews
Updates to detailed initial and continued unemployment claims data that have been available will be delayed for an indeterminate period of time. The delay is due to the modernization of Colorado’s unemployment insurance system and impacts to underlying reports that are used to generate these datasets.
*Initial claims are claims filed to establish (via a new initial claim) or reestablish (through an additional initial claim after an intervening period of employment and/or a break in PUA and PEUC eligibility prior to the implementation of the Continued Assistance Act) benefit eligibility. Initial claims are typically considered a reliable leading indicator of economic activity. All applications filed are those applications for benefits filed with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment and may not have been through various eligibility determination e.g. wage verification, etc.
As previously reported, the Department has identified an increase in reports of UI fraud that is likely connected to the expiration of CARES Act programs. Therefore, initial claims for the week ending February 13th have been adjusted in an attempt to account for fraudulent activity within regular UI. Going forward, CDLE will adjust regular UI initial claims data for fraudulent activity, as well as publish revisions to prior weeks, when necessary. PUA initial claims are also adjusted to account for fraudulent activity.
**Continued claims are filed to request payment for a given week after eligibility has been established. Weeks claimed provide information as to current labor market conditions.
Continued claims can be used as a proxy to roughly estimate the number of claimants receiving UI benefits in a given week. However, backdating of claims within PUA and PEUC (due to the reestablishment of those programs through the Continued Assistance Act) significantly limits the use of continued claims as the aforementioned proxy on a week-to-week basis. For an alternative source, CDLE recommends using the weekly PUA and PEUC individual continued claim counts provided above. The Department also produces a report that captures the number of UI payment recipients, by program type, on a monthly basis. The monthly data can be viewed in the final pages of the attached PDF at the bottom of this press release and has been updated through January 2021.