DETR reports PUA claims drop after two-week spike

For the week ending Nov. 7, initial claims for unemployment insurance totaled 7,556, down 602 claims, or 7.4%, compared to last week’s total of 8,158 claims, according to the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation.

Through the week ending Nov. 7, there have been 752,795 initial claims filed in 2020, 731,143 of which have been filed since the week ending March 14.

Continued claims, which represent the current number of insured unemployed workers filing weekly for unemployment insurance benefits, fell for the 13th consecutive week to 105,591, a decline of 8,151 claims, or 7.1%, from the previous week’s total of 114,102. This is the fewest continued claims since the report week ending March 28 when there were 58,798 claims filed.

The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which provides up to 46 weeks of benefits for the self-employed, 1099 contract workers and gig workers saw 18,485 initial claims filed in the week ending Nov. 7, a decrease of 32,213 claims, or 63.5%, from last week’s total of 50,698. This marked decline comes after unprecedented increases in the previous two weeks. DETR is looking into the underlying cause of the spike. Through the week ending Nov. 7, there have been 631,572 PUA initial claims filed.

PUA continued claims totaled 90,611 in the week ending Nov. 7, a decrease of 9,261 claims, or 9.3%, from the previous week.

Nevada’s Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, which provides up to 13 weeks of benefits to individuals who have exhausted their regular unemployment benefits, saw 92,211 claims filed in the week, an increase of 4,134 claims from a week ago. A continued increase in the number of PEUC claims is expected as claimants exhaust their regular program benefits.

Nevada’s State Extended Benefit program provides up to 20 weeks of benefits to individuals who have exhausted both their regular unemployment and PEUC program. Nevada had 10,174 claims filed in the week, an increase of 1,640 from a week ago.

Nationally, the advance figure for unadjusted regular initial claims was, 723,105, a decrease of 20,799 claims from the previous week. The national insured unemployment rate for the week ending Oct. 31 was 4.4%, a 0.3 point decline from the previous week. The national rate is reported with a one-week lag.