For Immediate Release
Date: February 11, 2021
Contact: Office of Government, Policy and Public Relations - cdle_pr@state.co.us
State Labor Dept Update for the Week Ending February 6th: UI Claims and Feature Job Openings This Week
There is no press call scheduled for today's release
(DENVER) -- Today the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE) reported that an estimated 14,018 regular initial unemployment claims were filed the week ending February 6th. Since mid-March 2020, an estimated total of 805,854 regular initial unemployment claims have been filed. With the Phase 1 rollout, there were 30,295 Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) initial claims filed for the week ending February 6th.*
For the week ending January 30th, a total of 72,507 continued claims were filed from the regular UI program. With the Phase 1 rollout, PUA and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) continued claims for the same week include only backdated claims from December 27th to January 30th. For PUA, a total of 111,366 continued claims were filed, while a total of 167,018 were filed for the PEUC program.** CDLE estimates that those continued claims were filed by 35,758 individuals for PUA and 39,657 individuals 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 $2.65 Billion
Week ending February 6: $25.2 Million
Pandemic Unemployment Assistance
(gig workers/self-employed) $1.09 Billion
Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation
($600/weekly UI benefits to eligible claimants, CARES Act;
$300/weekly UI benefits to eligible claimants, CAA) $2.65 Billion
Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation
(extends unemployment benefits by up to 13 weeks, CARES Act;
extends additional 11 weeks, CAA) $401.9 Million
State Extended Benefits
(extends unemployment benefits an additional 13 weeks) $29.9 Million
Lost Wages Assistance
($300/weekly UI benefits to eligible claimants, fall 2020) $389.2 Million
Total $7.21 Billion
Helping Coloradans with Reemployment Support:
Helping Coloradans with Reemployment Support:
CDLE and its partners hold regular, no-cost training that can help unemployed Coloradans get rehired. 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, 1:00 pm - 1:30 pm: Careers in Tech
February 25, 1:30 pm - 3:30 pm: Resumes Part 1
February 26, 1:30 pm - 3:30 pm: Phone Interviews
Who’s Hiring
There are approximately 70,000 jobs available in ConnectingColorado.com, the state’s jobs database.
- Total number of open jobs (2/10/21): 69,921
- Job titles posted most often (1/28/21):
- CDL-A truck drivers (3,680)
- Registered nurses (896)
- Customer service representatives (872)
- Industries hiring:
- While many industries are hiring, the top three were (1/28/21):
- Administrative and support and waste management and remediation services (26,721)
- Professional, scientific, and technical services (18,903)
- Retail trade (16,806)
The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment and the Office of the Future of Work publish articles to share hiring trends and highlight online and in-person resources to connect workers with meaningful employment. This week, we’ll give you an update on last week’s job postings and share the OFOW's first annual report. Read the latest article here.
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 or reestablish 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 6th 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 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.
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