COLUMBUS — For the week ending April 18, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS) reported 109,369 initial jobless claims to the U.S. Department of Labor.

The number of initial jobless claims filed in Ohio over the last five weeks stands at nearly 1 million — 964,566.

To put that in perspective, the total for the last five weeks of claims is 249,054 more than the combined total of 715,512 for the last two years.

Over these last five weeks, ODJFS has distributed more than $926 million in unemployment compensation payments to more than 376,000 claimants.

ODJFS urges individuals to file their claims online, if possible, at unemployment.ohio.gov. They are expanding staff support, working longer hours, and adding more technological capacity so that we can serve Ohioans as quickly as possible.

They have extended our call center to a seven-day-a-week operation and have more than 1,600 staff taking calls, with plans to launch a virtual call center by the end of this week.

All eligible Ohioans will receive their unemployment benefits – and any delays in processing their claims will not reduce the amount received.

For more information, visit unemployment.ohio.gov or call 1-877-644-6562 (OHIO-JOB) from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays, and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Sundays.