By George W. Hammond, EBRC Director and Eller Research Professor
U.S. air travel weakens again, initial claims drop
As of Friday August 20, 54.1% of Arizona residents received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and 47.5% were fully vaccinated, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services. COVID-19 cases continued to trend up at an accelerated pace to reach 982,775.
U.S. TSA traveler throughput fell for the third straight week, to 13.0 million, for the week ended August 21. That was down from 13.6 million the week prior. Throughput was up 161.1% over the year, but down 22.8% from 2019.
The U.S. hotel occupancy rate fell from 68.0% to 65.7% for the week ended August 14. That was up 31.7% over the year but down 8.4% from last year. The Arizona hotel occupancy rate in July 2021 was 62.2%. That was up 32.1% over the year, but below the national rate of 69.6% in July.
U.S. movie ticket sales bounced up to $106.5 million for the week ended August 19, from $93.4 million the prior week. Ticket sales were down 40.1% from 2019. U.S. new movie releases were down 59.8% from 2019 last week.
Seated diners at restaurants using the OpenTable app were roughly stable for the week ended August 21. Diners were down 9.5% and 12.3% from 2019 nationally and in Phoenix. Statewide diners were up 7.5% from 2019.
Arizona new business applications rose to 630 for the week ended August 14, from 590 the prior week. That was down 8.7% from last year. The 52-week average was up 31.4% over the year.
Travel to retail and recreation places (Google Mobility data) was stable for the week ended August 14. Compared to January 2020, travel was down between 4.1% and 15.4% for the U.S., Arizona, Maricopa County, and Pima County. Travel to work was down between 24.1% and 29.4%.
Arizona initial claims for regular unemployment insurance fell from 3,172 the prior week to 2,871 for the week ended August 14. That was down 75.4% over the year and down 18.3% from 2019. Initial claims for Pandemic Unemployment Insurance fell to 506, down from 562 the prior week.
National initial claims for regular unemployment insurance fell to 308,574 for the week ended August 14, down from 323,043 the prior week. That was down 62.9% over the year but up 80.0% from 2019. Initial claims for Pandemic Unemployment Insurance rose to 109,379 from 103,847 the prior week.
Daily Indicators
Use your cursor as a tooltip and click on charts to view values. Click on the names of indicators listed at the bottom any chart to switch them on/off to view fewer at one time and make comparisons. Icons allow you to download and share.
The percent of people vaccinated is the number of individuals who have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccination relative to the population of Arizona. The percent of people fully vaccinated is the number of individuals who have received a valid, complete vaccine series relative to the population. Vaccine data are from the Arizona Department of Health Statistics and population is from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The above chart shows the total number of doses administered in the state to date. COVID-19 vaccination data are provisional and are subject to change.
Weekly Indicators
Note: Official initial claims data for Arizona are released every Thursday morning covering the week ending on the previous Saturday. Beginning with data for the week ended July 25, 2020, initial claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance in Arizona displayed below are published by the U.S. Department of Labor and reflect an effort to exclude claims that are obviously fraudulent.
Note: The official Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance numbers for the U.S. are released every Thursday morning covering the week ending on the previous Saturday.
Note: Weekly movie ticket sales and number of releases are published on Thursdays covering the previous week beginning on Friday.
These data show year-over-year seated diners at restaurants on the OpenTable network across all channels: online reservations, phone reservations, and walk-ins. For year-over-year comparisons by day, we compare the week ending Saturday to the same week in the previous year. this dataset is based on a sample of approximately 20,000 restaurants that provide OpenTable with information on all of their inventory.
High-Propensity Business Applications are a subset of total weekly business applications in Arizona and measures the number of applications with a high-propensity of turning into a business with a payroll, based on various factor. These data reflect weekly applications for Employer Identification Numbers (EINs) in Arizona and include applications: (a) from a corporate entity, (b) that indicate they are hiring employees, purchasing a business or changing organizational type, (c) that provide a first wages-paid date (planned wages); or (d) that have a NAICS industry code in manufacturing (31-33), retail stores (44), health care (62), or restaurants/food service (72). Applications for EINs occur before the jobs and wages are added, so this is a leading indicator. Read more about the Business Applications dataset. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.
