Indiana trends in right direction regarding unemployment

A drop of 39-hundred from the prior week.

In illinois... there were just over 13-thousand initial claims last week.

That's a decrease of more than 25-hundred from the prior week.

A year ago this month... indiana saw it's highest number of initial unemployment claims filed in recent history at 139 thousand.

At the beginning of this march... the state saw about 92 hundred initial claims. this marks the lowest since the pandemic began.

Indiana officials say the state is trending in the right direction.

News 10's dominic miranda joins us now live in our newsroom.

He has more from the "department of workforce development" on how the state is moving forward.

Indiana's current unemployment rate is at 4 percent.

That's down significantly from the record high of 16 point 9 percent back in april of last year.

Commissioner at the department of workforce development fred payne says.... their office has been swamped...but work continues to be focused on recovery.

[take pkg incue: payne first made outcue: **bite** greater career choices duration:1:32] pk} payne first made the point that claims are not people.

Claims are what people file each week to collect their unemployment benefits.

One person..

Could file 25 claims in 25 weeks there were 18 point 4 million weekly claims for unemployment filed from march 2020 to february 2021.

15 point 8 million of those claims were processed and paid within 21 days.

That's a rate of 85 percent.

But payne says it doesn't come without challenges.

Fraud has become a dominant factor in the unemployment insurance system.

It significantly impacts processing time.

Payne says in just the past 2 weeks.... there were more than 63 thousand fraud attempts to defraud the system... as a result...he stresses patience when filing your claims. "we're aware that some of the fraud detection measures that we've put in place may be inconvenient for some and impact processing time, but we must have them in place to combat these criminals and to ensure that only those that are eligible receive benefits."

Payne says making sure benefits are administered is just part of their mission during this pandemic.

Their department recently launched the hoosier talent network.

It uses artificial intelligence to help match hoosiers to jobs and to training for better employment opportunities.

"our agency is committed to providing benefits to all eligible hoosiers while increasing opportunity to evolve people's education and training levels which will lead to greater career choices."

Payne says many indicators show that indiana is closer to economic unemployment recovery.

Reporting live in the newsroom i'm dominic miranda news 10