LITTLE ROCK – Governor Asa Hutchinson has directed the Division of Workforce Services to end the State of Arkansas’s participation in the federal supplemental unemployment assistance after June 26.

“The programs were implemented to assist  the unemployed during the pandemic when businesses were laying off employees and jobs were scarce,” Governor Hutchinson said. “As we emerge from COVID-19, retail and service companies, restaurants, and industry are attempting to return to prepandemic unemployment levels, but employees are as scarce today as jobs were a year ago. The $300 federal supplement helped thousands of Arkansans make it through this tough time, so it served a good purpose. Now we need Arkansans back on the job so that we can get our economy back to full speed.”

The governors of Montana and South Carolina already have opted out of the federal pandemic unemployment assistance programs.