Unemployment claims by federal workers are rare and tend to average around 1,000 or less per week. But 35,873 federal workers filed jobless claims in the first 2 weeks of 2019, more than 12 times the number who typically apply during that timeframe.
The big picture: The 2013 government shutdown affected more government agencies than its 2019 counterpart. That year about 850,000 federal employees did not work for at least part of the 16-day shutdown, and more than 1 million employees did not receive a paycheck, the Office of Management and Budget found.
Go deeper: U.S. jobless claims dropped to lowest in 50 years