SINCE SEPTEMBER 11, PENNSYLVANIANS FILING FOR UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS UP 50% OVER 2000 LEVELS

With Today’s Release of October U.S. Unemployment Figure, Keystone Research Center Examines Latest Data on PA. Job Market

New PA Claims for Unemployment Benefits Approach 1 Million for the Year

68,000 PA. Manufacturing Workers Hit By Mass Layoffs in 2001

Harrisburg, November 2 – On the morning that the U.S. Department of Labor announced that U.S. unemployment jumped from 4.9 percent to 5.4 percent in October, the Keystone Research Center (KRC) today released a briefing paper examining the latest data on the Pennsylvania job market.

In the absence of any post-September 11 state-level unemployment rate statistics, Keystone’s report provides the first careful and accessible look at whether Pennsylvania’s economy slowed further in the wake of the terrorist tragedy.

KRC’s data provides a state-level angle for PA reporters writing about the October U.S. employment statistics. The release of the KRC Briefing Paper, Unemployment Claims Rising in Pennsylvania, also coincides with rallies of civic groups and unemployed workers in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

To gauge the impact of September 11, KRC relied on official government statistics on the number of workers who filed claims for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits through the week of October 20. (For technical reasons, official September unemployment rates, including for PA, do not take account of layoffs after September 11. State-level unemployment for October won’t be available until November 20.)

KRC’s analysis of UI claims focuses on two periods, the five weeks ending October 20 and the year 2001 as a whole. KRC compared numbers for both periods with the same time span a year ago and in some cases with U.S. trends.

In the five weeks ending October 20:

  • initial claims for UI benefits in Pennsylvania shot up to 111,421, compared to only 72,466 in the same five-week period 12 months earlier; and
  • total weeks of UI benefits claimed in Pennsylvania jumped to 781,178, compared to 511,990 in the same period a year earlier.

In the year 2001 as a whole:

  • initial claims for UI in Pennsylvania have now reached nearly a million -- 978,029 – an increase of 32 percent from 738,786 the year before.
  • the total number of weeks of UI claimed in Pennsylvania has risen to 7.3 million compared to 5.5 million a year ago.
  • the number of workers hit by large-scale "mass layoffs" (involving 50 or more workers) has increased even faster -- UI claims due to mass layoffs are up to 103,066, from 67,288 in 2000;
  • manufacturing mass layoffs have mushroomed the most -- 67,802 Pennsylvania manufacturing workers filed UI claims due to mass layoffs in the first nine months of 2001, compared to only 36,207 in the first nine months of 2000.
  • one out of every 13 Pennsylvania manufacturing workers has filed for unemployment insurance due to a mass layoff in the first nine months of 2001, a rate 43 percent higher than for the United States as a whole.

"Recession is tightening its grip on the Pennsylvania economy," concluded Keystone Executive Director Stephen Herzenberg, "That’s why we need an economic package from Congress that helps unemployed workers and pumps money back into the communities and businesses that demand on consumer buying power."

Today’s Philadelphia and Pittsburgh rallies today are just the latest in a snowballing grassroots movement to demand a Congressional response to the pain of workers and their families. Both rallies will provide photo opportunities and testimony from unemployed workers. KRC and the organizers of the rallies will facilitate interviews with unemployed workers for radio and other interested members of the media.

The Philadelphia rally organized by United Pennsylvanians (www.UnitedPa.org) and the Philadelphia Unemployment Project will take place at 11 a.m. at the CareerLink Office at 990 Spring Garden St (contact: Alisa Simon, 215-569-8220).

The Pittsburgh rally organized by the Mon. Valley Unemployment Committee will take place at 9:00 A.M. on the Liberty Ave Side of the Federal Building (contact: Barney Oursler, 412-462-9962 or 412-370-8567).

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