unemployment

Community unemployment groups still want answers for issues that have come up over the last two years.

The pandemic caused an unprecedented number of temporary and permanent job losses, with over 4.7 million New Yorkers collecting benefits.

While New York reportedly added 9,800 jobs in June, there continues to be a labor shortage across the state.

"It was a cycle that individuals were kind of in the hamster wheel on, and some of them are just getting back to comfortable being in the stores now."

The official launch of a new state unemployment benefits portal last Tuesday was riddled with technical hiccups.

The final phases have been on hold since late last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, but all workers have to do now is some fine-tuning and system tests.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reported that the national unemployment rate for March was around 6%. Meanwhile, that number for New York State was still at around 8.8% as of February.

“The Department of Labor told my office that they are investigating, and they have already identified 425,000 fraudulent claims statewide."

More than 300,000 people in Pennsylvania have been filing for continuing claims, according to federal data.

While the unemployment rate in the five boroughs dropped to 13.2% in October, the rate outside New York City went up from 6.6% in September to 6.9% in October.