From The NJDOL:

For the week ending Nov. 7, New Jersey saw a 15 percent drop in new unemployment claims,  for a weekly total of 20,976* new claims. This is the fourth straight week of declines, and represents about 3,700 fewer new claims than the prior week.  

Approximately 1.78 million people have applied for unemployment since mid-March, and 1.465 million have met the monetary requirements for benefits. Of those, 96 percent have received payment. The average claimant has received more than $13,000 in benefits.   

The Department has distributed $18.7 billion in payments to unemployed and under employed New Jersey workers, including $241 million last week.    

 Here is a look at the number of new unemployment claims received by the department each week:   

Here is a look at the weekly payments made by the Labor Department to eligible claimants:  

PUA, PEUC and FPUC are federal programs authorized by Congress under the CARES Act. Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) provides benefits through the end of the year; maximum eligibility is 46 weeks. Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) provides 13 weeks of federal benefits for those who exhaust 26 weeks of state unemployment. Most of them are able to transition to 20 weeks of state Extended Benefits (EB). Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) provided $600/week to everyone eligible for unemployment for the weeks of April 4 through July 25. Lost Wages Assistance (LWA) provided up to six weeks of supplemental benefits through FEMA to people unemployed the weeks of Aug. 1 through Sept. 5 due to COVID, and who were eligible for at least $100 in weekly unemployment.    

For more information on state or federal unemployment programs, visit myunemployment.nj.gov.       

Anyone looking for work is encouraged to visit New Jersey’s jobs portal – jobs.covid19.nj.gov.          

For national unemployment data, visit https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf. For archived NJ claims data, visit https://oui.doleta.gov/unemploy/DataDashboard.asp.      

*This represents the final number for the week ending Nov. 7. The number listed for New Jersey by the US Department of Labor – 19,987 – is based on advanced reporting.