Unemployment Claims In Fayette Rising Again

The number of unemployment claims in Fayette County rose two weeks in a row after dropping steadily since mid-July.

The Texas Workforce Commission reported 30 new claims for the week of Sept. 5, the most recent number available. The week before 25 people filed for unemployment. That was up from a low of 13 during the week of Aug. 22, which was the lowest number of unemployment claims since the coronavirus pandemic began affecting the economy in March.

The state unemployment rate fell to 7 percent in August. That’s down from 8.3 percent in July. In August of last year, the unemployment rate was just 3.7 percent in Texas.

Nationwide, the unemployment rate was 8.5 percent in August. That was down from 10.5 percent in July. The unemployment rate across the United States in August of last year was 3.8 percent.

The unemployment rate across the country may be trending downward, but the rate doesn’t tell the whole story. Economists who calculate the unemployment rate stop counting people who have been unemployed for longer than four weeks as part of the labor force. Some businesses have been forced to stay closed for months due to government mandates aimed at slowing the spread of the virus. Labor force numbers suggest many are struggling long-term to find a job. The U.S. civilian labor force in August 2019 stood at more than 164 million people. By August of this year, that number had fallen to just under 161 million.

Texas lost 616,000 nonagricultural jobs between August 2019 and August 2020 according to numbers from the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC). Job numbers for the State have been improving in recent months, but nearly all industries are employing fewer people.

Worst hit was the State’s leisure and hospitality industry, which lost 247,000 jobs in the last year. Only one of the industries tracked by TWC increased employment in the past year: the financial activities industry, which grew by 0.4 percent between Aug. 2019 and Aug. 2020.