The number of Pennsylvanians filing unemployment claims continues to climb.
On Monday, Pennsylvania Labor & Industry Secretary Jerry Oleksiak said that the state had surpassed 1.5 million unemployment claims filed since March 15, when the state rolled out coronavirus mitigation efforts.
By contrast, in the three weeks prior to March 13, the state logged 40,000 new unemployment claims.
The state also logged 976 new workers compensation claims. Oleksiak said that about 302 of those appeared to be related to workers in the health care, first responder or law enforcement sectors – and all are related to COVID-19.