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Omicron not boosting unemployment claims in Florida
In numbers that indicate the omicron variant of the coronavirus is not causing major job losses, Florida had an estimated 4,046 initial unemployment claims during the week that ended Jan. 1, according to data released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Labor.
That total was down from a revised count of 4,244 claims during the week that ended Dec. 25.
The federal agency estimated 207,000 first-time claims were filed nationally last week, an increase of 7,000 from the week ending Dec. 25.
Claims nationally have been around 200,000 a week since early November.
For Florida, new claims have averaged 4,871 during the past four weeks and 7,158 a week since mid-May, when the state upped efforts to push people back into the workforce.
Florida recently has seen unemployment claim totals that are similar to the period before the COVID-19 pandemic caused massive job losses in 2020.
For example, in the four weeks before March 15, 2020, the date state and federal agencies use to mark the start of the pandemic in terms of jobless claims, the weekly average was 5,367.
Florida in November 2021 had a 4.5 percent unemployment rate, with an estimated 483,000 Floridians out-of-work from a labor force of 10.63 million.
The state Department of Economic Opportunity will release a December report on Jan. 21.
