WASHINGTON — The number of laid-off workers who are continuing to draw unemployment checks jumped more than expected to 4.6 million at the end of December and is likely to keep climbing this year — fresh evidence that people are finding it increasingly difficult to get a new job amid a deepening recession.
The Labor Department’s report Thursday also said first-time applications for jobless benefits dropped to 467,000 last week. But economists largely described that decline as a distortion, reflecting the government’s difficulty in making seasonal adjustments over the holiday period. Even with the dip, the figure still signaled trouble in the labor market. A year ago, initial claims stood at 330,000.
Persistent economic woes along with a flurry of layoffs announcements in the opening days of 2009 all point to another terrible year for job-seekers, economists said.
The government’s report showed that the number of people continuing to collect unemployment benefits rose by a sharp 101,000 to 4.6 million for the week ending Dec. 27, the most recent period for which that information is available. It was worse than the 4.5 million level of claims that economists had expected.
That increase left continued claims at the highest since November 1982, when the country was emerging from a deep recession, though the labor force has grown by about half since then.
State unemployment
In Washington, state officials took in a record number of new unemployment claims in December despite snow-related office closures and overloaded phone systems.
Some 90,331 people applied for unemployment benefits last month, a 75 percent increase from a year ago, the state reported. Despite the Christmas holiday, the week of Dec. 21-27 set a record when 25,687 people filed claims, officials said.
“We knew the workload was skyrocketing, but we were surprised when we saw the final numbers for the month,” said Karen Lee, the employment security commissioner.
She said the agency has doubled the staff at its call centers and added more phone lines.
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