DENVER – Regular unemployment initial claims fell below 10,000 last week in Colorado for the first time since the novel coronavirus hit the state in earnest in mid-March, the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment said Thursday.
Coloradans filed 9,882 regular initial claims for the week ending June 20 and 10,385 initial claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), the unemployment program for self-employed and gig workers implemented by the CARES Act.
The number of regular initial claims fell by about 400 over the week before. And were about one-tenth of what they were the week ending April 11, after stay-at-home orders went into effect statewide, closing down many businesses across the state.
The CDLE says a combined 588,988 regular and PUA initial claims have been made over the past 14 weeks.
The department has paid out $971 million in regular unemployment benefits since March 29; $327 million in PUA benefits from federal money; and around $1.47 billion in the $600 a week benefit for anyone receiving unemployment benefits, knowing as the Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (PUC) program.
For the week ending June 20, the state paid out $90.4 million in regular unemployment benefits.
The accommodation and food services industry continued to account for the highest number of initial claims among industries for the week ending June 6 (these data are on a three-week delay) and made up about 11.6% of initial claims that week, the CDLE said. The other industries with the highest number of initial claims were education services, health care and social service, and administrative and support and waste management and remediation services.
