TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – An estimated 16,212 unemployment applications were filed last week in Florida, as the state has averaged more than 18,000 weekly claims since early February.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s estimate for the week that ended April 17 was down from a revised 24,402 claims the prior week. The revised number for the week that ended April 10 was the highest since the end of January, when 69,140 applications came in.
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Nationally, 547,000 new claims were filed last week, down 39,000 from the prior week. The national number was the lowest since March 14, 2020, when 256,000 applications were filed as the coronavirus pandemic began sweeping across the country.
The department had initially estimated 16,170 new claims were filed in Florida during the week that ended April 10 but significantly increased the total with the revision Thursday. Florida has averaged 18,428 new weekly claims since the first week of February.
Last Friday, the state Department of Economic Opportunity reported Florida’s unemployment rate for March stood at 4.7%, the same as in February. That represented 475,000 people out of work from a workforce of 10.17 million. The workforce size remained down 460,000 people from March 2020, according to state figures.
Since March 15, 2020, Florida has paid out more than $25.9 billion in state and federal unemployment benefits to 2.34 million claimants.