ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — We're starting to get a look at how COVID-19 is impacting Florida's job market. The number of new unemployment claims last week was up more than 150,000 from the week before.
Nationwide, 6.6 million made their initial claims last week. That's double the 3.3 million claims from the previous week. Two weeks ago, there were 74,313 claims in Florida, according to the Department of Labor. Then, last week, another 227,000 Floridians made their initial unemployment claims.
Friday morning, the monthly report is scheduled to be released for March. It might not provide the real unemployment numbers, though, because the jobs survey closed on March 14. That’s a week before the number of new jobless claims started to escalate.
According to The Century Foundation, a non-partisan thinktank, they forecast the unemployment rate here in Florida will be 16.1 percent or higher, but the state could report about 4 percent. It was 2.8 percent back in January.
We know many have had trouble logging on to the CONNECT site to file. The director of the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity is working on a paper application to mail in.
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