By George W. Hammond, Ph.D., EBRC director and Eller research professor
Latest Data
Arizona initial claims for unemployment insurance dropped to 98,531 last week, down from 132,428 in the week prior. From the week ending March 14 to April 11, there were 353,091 claims. A giant number of jobs lost in Arizona, to say the least. Unfortunately, there are more to come.
The Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity put together disaggregated data for a subset of state claims (roughly 58% of the total). These data come from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics PROMIS program. This gives us a snapshot of the claims by industry and geography for the weeks ending March 21 through April 4. Exhibit 1 shows the claims by industry.
Accommodations and food service workers filed by far the most claims during the period, followed by health care and social assistance; retail trade; administration and waste services; and other services (probably barbers, hair, and nail salon workers). These roughly correspond to the sectors most impacted by government and self-imposed social distancing.
Exhibit 1: Arizona Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance by Industry, Week Ending March 21 Through April 4, PROMIS program
Exhibit 2 shows the claims by county. As we would expect, the majority of the claims are in Maricopa County, followed by Pima County and Pinal County.
Exhibit 2: Arizona Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance by County, Week Ending March 21 Through April 4, PROMIS program
The nation is in similar straits, with 5,245,000 initial claims for unemployment insurance last week. That was down from a revised total of 6,615,000 in the week prior. From the week ended March 21 to April 11, U.S. claims totaled 22,316,000.
U.S. hotel occupancy rates held roughly steady for the week ended April 11, at 21.0%. That was down just slightly from 21.6% in the prior week. Hotels are working hard to fill rooms by banding together to offer rooms to emergency and health care workers, the homeless, and as meeting spaces for those who need away-from-home space for key meetings.
U.S. movie ticket sales totaled $5,925 for the week ending April 9, essentially unchanged from the prior two weeks. Movie releases are also very low, at 2 new releases in theaters last week.
TSA screened just 729,112 passengers during the week ending April 11. That was down 95.4% from the same week last year. Just six weeks ago, TSA screened 14.1 million passengers.
Overview and Visualizations
The U.S. and Arizona economies are experiencing a huge shift in business and consumer behavior due to the spread of COVID-19. As the impacts of reduced household wealth and social distancing work through the economy, it will be important to track the economic performance of the travel and tourism sector and the overall economy. To get an early read on how the impacts of social distancing are impacting travel and tourism, this page presents weekly indicators of U.S. gross sales of movie tickets , the number of U.S. movie releases , U.S. hotel occupancy rates , and the overall number of initial claims for unemployment insurance for the U.S. and Arizona. The Forecasting Project has a wealth of data to help you do that!
To get an early read on how the impacts of social distancing are impacting travel and tourism, this page presents weekly indicators of U.S. gross sales of movie tickets, the number of U.S. movie releases, U.S. hotel occupancy rates, and the overall number of initial claims for unemployment insurance for the U.S. and Arizona.
At first, the news here is mostly going to be bad, but keep coming back. The economy will begin to improve as we move through the year, and that improvement will be reflected in these data. The following charts and tables are a permanent feature on the Arizona’s Economy homepage. Check back frequently. The charts below are interactive with your cursor tooltip and you can use the icons to download, embed, and share the data.
Daily Indicators
Use your cursor as a tooltip and click on charts to view values. Click on the names of indicators listed at the bottom any chart to switch them on/off to view fewer at one time and make comparisons. Icon at the bottom of each table allows you to download data and share.
Weekly Indicators
Note: An advanced number for Arizona Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance is released on Tuesdays covering the week ending the previous Saturday. We publish the advance number here on Tuesdays. The official release is issued on Thursdays at which point we replace the advance estimate with the official count.
Note: The official Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance numbers for the U.S. are released every Thursday morning covering the week ending on the previous Saturday.
Note: Weekly movie ticket sales and number of releases are published on Thursdays covering the previous week beginning on Friday.
