Fri, 12/18/2020 - 4:48pm -- tim by Timothy McQuiston, Vermont Business Magazine Weekly unemployment claims our on their typical holiday season roller coaster. Claims fell last week after the previous week's spike of 2,013, but have been trending up consistently the last two months. Claims fell 579 to 1,434 last week (up 895 from the same time last year). As for the week's ongoing jobless claims, for the week ending December 12, 2020, the Labor Department processed 13,343 claims, down 608 from the previous week and 9,235 more than the same time last year. As for further comparison, initial Vermont claims for the week of March 21, 2020, were 3,784, up 3,125 from the week of March 14.