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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

Weekly unemployment claims up nationwide, down in Indiana

Unemployment insurance claims rose last week, but a Department of Labor spokesperson said the uptick is nothing out of the ordinary.

According to a news release from the United States Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration, 4,000 applicants filed claims last week.

“This is a pretty minor increase,” DOL spokesperson Jason Kuruvilla said. “If you look over the last several months, that number fluctuates about three or 4,000 every week.”

Claims ending in the week of Aug. 23 topped off at 298,000 people and last week’s claims peaked at 302,000 people when seasonally adjusted.

A year ago that number was 328,000.

He said that despite the numbers going up nationwide, they reflect the numbers seen prior to the ?recession.

“We’ve seen pretty strong employment growth the last couple months, averaging about 210,000 jobs a month,” Kuruvilla said. “This is all kind of consistent with each other that the economy is growing at a steady pace.”

Despite claims rising as a whole throughout the nation, Indiana saw unemployment insurance claims drop by 80 people, accounting for 3,775 of the claims. This is a decrease of 978 claims from the previous year.

Initial unemployment claims in the state are on a four-week downturn while continued claims have been dropping for more than a month.

The main factor for a decrease in unemployment claims would axiomatically be because of employment, Kuruvilla said.

Another reason for the decrease could be exhaustion of the unemployment benefits.

In July, Indiana had steady unemployment but added almost 10,000 private sector jobs, increasing the size of the labor force, which may be accountable.

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