Daily News

Initial Unemployment Claims Up Slightly Last Week in Massachusetts

BOSTON — Massachusetts had 44,660 individuals file an initial claim for standard unemployment insurance (UI) from May 31 to June 6, an increase of 17,626 over the previous week. Since March 15, a total of 968,899 initial claims have been filed for UI. At 565,898, continued UI claims decreased by 9,964 or 1.7% over the previous week, the second consecutive week of decline.

There were 20,991 Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) initial claims filed for the week ending June 6, 33,290 fewer than the previous week. Since April 20, 2020, 594,068 claimants have filed for PUA.

The Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), which provided up to 13 weeks of extended benefits to individuals who have exhausted or expired their regular unemployment compensation since July 2019, was implemented on May 21. For the week ending June 6, 3,692 PEUC claims were filed, bringing the total of PEUC filings to 46,945 since implementation.