Younger workers take growing share of US unemployment insurance

The share of young US workers filing for unemployment has surged during the pandemic.

Three years ago, almost half all beneficiaries were older than 45, a share that has now fallen to 45.8%, according to US labor Department data. Meanwhile, the percentage of workers younger than 35 claiming unemployment insurance jumped to more than 31% from about 28%.

Here are four charts that illustrate shifts in the makeup of unemployment since June 2019:

The majority of claimants are now women. Some of the sectors that have been the hardest hit by the pandemic, such as health care, tend to employ more women and they still haven’t recovered their pre-Covid levels. 

The share of health care and social-assistance workers requesting unemployment benefits has increased to 12.3% of claimants in June from 10.3% of claimants three years earlier. There are about 350,000 fewer nursing and residential care facility workers, in part due to the deaths of about one million Americans from Covid-19, the vast majority of whom are elderly.

Meanwhile the percentage of unemployment beneficiaries working in manufacturing has fallen to 9% from 10.6%. Manufacturing firms have been boosting their workforce to meet soaring demand for goods during the pandemic.  

Since 2019, a larger share of claimants identify as Hispanic. 

And the share of claimants who are Asian or Black also increased.

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