Initial unemployment claims decline for 8th straight week

Finalized data from the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation show initial claims for unemployment insurance totaled 10,347 for the week ending June 20, down 273 claims, or 2.6 percent, compared to last week’s total of 10,620. This is the eighth consecutive week of declines in regular initial claims.

Through the week ending June 20, there have been 538,892 initial claims filed in 2020, 517,240 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 to 294,649, a decline from the previous week of 17,360 claims, or 5.6 percent. This is the first report since April where the total number of continued claims has fallen below 300,000, indicating a return to work for some claimants following the reopening of businesses across the state.

Nevada’s insured unemployment rate, which is the ratio of continued claims in a week to the total number of jobs covered by the unemployment insurance system, fell 1.2 percentage points to 21.4 percent. It should be noted that the calculation of the insured unemployment rate is different from that of the state’s total unemployment rate.

The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program for the self-employed, 1099 contract workers and gig workers saw 29,440 initial claims filed in the week, an increase of 4,720 from last week’s total of 24,720. PUA continued claims totaled 114,776 in the week ending June 20, a decline of 11,183 from the previous week’s revised total of 125,949.

Weekly PUA continued claims are now being reported by the week claimed. This better represents the number of claimants filing by 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 7,817 claims filed in the week, an increase of 622 from a week ago.

Nationally, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted regular initial claims was 1,480,000, a decline of 60,000 claims from the previous week’s revised level of 1,540,000. The national insured unemployment rate for the week ending June 13 was 13.4 percent, a decrease of 0.5 percentage points from the previous week’s revised rate. The national rate is reported with a one-week lag.