Massachusetts Initial Unemployment Claims Decrease Slightly

BOSTON — From May 17 to May 23, Massachusetts had 37,618 individuals file an initial claim for standard unemployment insurance (UI), a decrease of 463 over the previous week. Since March 15, a total of 897,205 initial claims have been filed for UI. For the same week, 588,049 continued UI claims were filed, an increase of 5,009 or 0.9% over the previous week.

For the week of May 17 to May 23, 147,594 Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) claims were filed, bringing the total of claimants who have filed for PUA to 518,796.