Nevada’s new unemployment claims move slightly upward

Finalized data from the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation show initial claims for unemployment insurance totaled 7,941 for the week ending Oct. 3, up 416 claims, or 5.5%, compared to last week’s total of 7,525 claims.

Through the week ending Oct. 3, there have been 710,347 initial claims filed in 2020, 688,695 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 eighth consecutive week to 173,629, a decline of 16,984 claims, or 8.9%, from the previous week’s total of 190,613. This is the fewest continued claims since the report week ending April 4, when there were 131,121 claims filed.

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 by 1.25 percentage points to 12.5%. 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, which provides up to 46 weeks of benefits for the self-employed, 1099 contract workers, and gig workers saw 9,439 initial claims filed in the week ending Oct. 3, a decrease of 1,759, or 15.7%, from last week’s total of 11,198. Through the week ending Oct. 3, 483,572 PUA initial claims have been filed.

PUA continued claims totaled 94,559 in the week ending Oct. 3, a decline of 1,270, or 1.3%, from the previous week’s revised total of 95,829. Weekly PUA continued claims are now reported by the benefit week claimed. This follows the reporting procedure for regular continued claims and allows us to understand the number of unemployed workers filing weekly for PUA benefits.

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 50,782 claims filed in the week, an increase of 13,436 claims from a week ago. PEUC claims are expected to increase as large groups of regular program filers exhaust their regular unemployment benefits.

Nevada’s State Extended Benefit program, which provides up to 20 weeks of benefits to individuals who have exhausted both their regular unemployment benefits and PEUC program benefits, saw 4,589 claims filed in the week, an increase of 443 claims from a week ago.

Nationally, the advance figure for unadjusted regular initial claims was 804,307 an increase of 5,312 claims from the previous week. The national insured unemployment rate for the week ending Sept. 26 was 7.5%, a 0.7 percentage point decline from the previous week’s rate. The national rate is reported with a one-week lag.