The year changes, the damage in employment does not

The year 2020 was a lousy year for employment to the end. The force that COVID is gaining prevents improvements and that is not changed by the calendar. According to the Labor department in the week ending January 2 787, 000 workers applied for unemployment insurance for the first time.

To this are added 161, 000 more workers who applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance or PUA, according to its acronym in English. These are aid to the unemployed person who normally does not have access to this benefit program because he is an independent contractor or freelancer.

It is a program created by the law to support the CARES Act economy and which has been expanded in the last stimulus package, which came into force at the end of 2020, during 11 more weeks.

In total there are 948,000 people who in a week they have come to depend on these aid during a time when the economic key is a pandemic that is devastating neighborhoods and collapsing hospitals in one of the worst moments since it was declared in the country. There is no truce in unemployment and at this moment about 19. 17 millions of workers are receiving some kind of help for this.

The figures of the last week reflect some improvement because there is 152, initial claims less due to a reduction in PUA claims that were in question until just the end of the year due to the 31 from December. President Donald Trump decided to sign the pandemic aid package approved by Congress after taking his time to do so.

Once the program has been expanded, it is to be expected that these aid demands will rise again.

It is also to be expected applications for unemployment extensions, which were also extended in the last aid package approved at the end of December, to rise. Workers who have exhausted all aid can request 11 more weeks of support but have to resubmit the requests.