By George W. Hammond, EBRC director and Eller research professor
Arizona initial claims for regular unemployment insurance held roughly steady at 6,410 for the week ended Saturday, November 14. That was about double the normal pre-pandemic rates.
As reported by the U.S. Department of Labor, initial claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance in Arizona fell to just 1,783 in the week ending November 7. That was an all-time low for this program. However, the claims increased somewhat to 4006 in the most recent release covering week the ending November 14.
Pandemic Unemployment Assistance was created by the CARES Act last March. It provides coverage to the self-employed, gig workers, and other impacted by the pandemic. It is currently scheduled to expire at the end of 2020. These data have been significantly impacted by fraudulent claims resulting in large weekly swings as the Arizona Department of Employment Security struggles to report only valid claims to the U.S. Department of Labor.
According to the Arizona Department of Employment Security it has paid out $12.1 billion in unemployment benefits from early March through November 7 (both state and federal aid). They also report that the UI Trust Fund Balance rose last week to $155 million.
After a slight decline in week ended November 7, U.S. initial claims for regular unemployment insurance ticked up again to 743,460 in the week ended November 14. U.S. Initial claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance fell to 296,374 in week ended November 7, but also climbed again in the November 14 release reaching 320,237 new claims.
The travel and tourism sector showed no significant signs of recovery last week. The U.S. hotel occupancy rate continued recent modest weekly declines falling to 43.2% during the week ended November 14. That was 37.4% below last year. U.S. travel to retail and recreation places as measured by Google Maps improved slightly for the week ended November 14, but remained well below January 2020 levels.
We have slightly more recent data for TSA throughput than for the other weekly measures reported here. TSA traveler throughput rose by more than a half million travelers for the week ended November 21, reaching 6.1 million. This figure is 61.1% below the same week last year.
U.S. movie box office sales declined slightly for the week ended November 19, to $12.8 million. That was 92.5% below last year. There were 32 new movie releases. Seated diners at restaurants using the OpenTable app declined modestly for the week ended November 21 with Arizona remaining 31.8 below the same week last year and Phoenix down 48.1%, while the U.S. was 53.3% lower than last year.
Arizona new business applications fell slightly for the week ended November 7, but were up 24.4% from last year. That pulled the 52-week average up 9.4% above the prior year.
These data reflect weekly applications for Employer Identification Numbers (EINs) in Arizona which are likely to result in employment and wages. These include applications: (a) from a corporate entity, (b) that indicate they are hiring employees, purchasing a business or changing organizational type, (c) that provide a first wages-paid date (planned wages); or (d) that have a NAICS industry code in manufacturing (31-33), retail stores (44), health care (62), or restaurants/food service (72). Applications for EINs occur before the jobs and wages are added, so this is a leading indicator.
