Unemployment Payments Continue to Mount

Iowa Workforce Development (IWD) announced today there were just under 29,000 initial unemployment claims filed by individuals for the week of April 19-25. That number is up about 1,000 from initial claims filed the prior week. $51.4 million dollars was paid out of the trust fund towards benefits. The number of continuing weekly unemployment claims was 170,990. Sectors that saw the most claims filed included manufacturing (7,402), health care and social assistance (4,190), and those who are not identified by industry including the self-employed, independent contractors, etc. (4,182). ABI continues to track the health of the trust fund and work with IWD as the landscape on unemployment continues to change weekly. Read the news release.