Initial claims for unemployment compensation remain above 17,000 and essentially unchanged over the past two weeks, the Ohio human services agency said Thursday.
Ohioans filed 17,531 claims for the week ending October 24, just down from the 17,598 filed the previous week, according to the Department of Job and Family Services. While the number of initial claims is gradually falling, they're still more than twice as high as for the same week a year ago.
To date during the pandemic, the state has paid $7.1 billion in unemployment compensation payments to more than 830,000 Ohioans.
Ohio has pledged several financial efforts recently to help individuals and businesses hurt by the pandemic. They include a record $5 billion in repayments from the state insurance fund for injured workers announced Wednesday and $420 million in federal pandemic aid going to small businesses, colleges and universities, restaurants and bars, nonprofits and arts groups, among others.
Coronavirus cases are spiking in the state, with 82 of Ohio's 88 counties now considered high incident locations and three counties—Clark, Cuyahoga and Hamilton—in danger of turning “purple,” indicating the highest level of the spread and incidence of COVID-19.
To date, the state has reported more than 205,000 confirmed and probable cases, including 5,256 deaths.
