OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma’s economic recovery from COVID-19 continues to improve.
The Oklahoma Employment Security Commission reports today that unemployment claims continued to decline for the week ending August 29 — marking 10-straight weeks of fewer Oklahomans filing for benefits.
Oklahoma’s four-week average declined for both initial claims and continued claims. Initial claims decreased to 5,125 for the week of August 29, dropping 939 from the previous week’s revised level of 6,064.
Continued claims totaled 108,965, dropping by 13,548 from the previous week’s 122,513.
Additionally, as of Thursday, OESC has paid more than $2.9 billion total benefits and has processed more than 820,000 claims.
“I’m thrilled to see claim numbers declining for the 10th week in a row, and I certainly hope these rates continue to fall,” Shelley Zumwalt, OESC executive director, said. “This trend is a good sign that the job gains we saw in July were not a fluke, and, even though we saw less job growth in August, the state’s economic outlook is steadily improving.”
Using the four-week moving average, both initial and continued claims have declined for 10 weeks in a row.
• For the file week ending August 29, the advance number of initial claims, unadjusted, totaled 5,125, a decrease of 939 from the previous week’s revised level of 6,064.
• For the same file week, the less volatile initial claims’ four-week moving average was 5,859, down 371 from the previous week’s revised average of 6,230.
• For the file week ending August 29, the advance unadjusted number of continued claims totaled 108,965, down 13,548 from the previous week’s revised level of 122,513.
• For the same file week, the less volatile continued claims fourweek moving average was 121,189, down 3,539 from the previous week’s revised average of 124,728.
Individuals seeking unemployment benefits should go to www.ui.ok.gov and create an account with the Get Started button to connect their social security number and pull all unemployment information into one location.