State’s initial, continuing claims rise

Regular initial &continued claims rise; PUA initial claims down for second straight week

Finalized data from the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation show initial claims for unemployment insurance totaled 17,755 for the week ending Aug. 8, up 4,028 claims, or 29.3%, compared to last week’s total of 13,727 claims.

Through the week ending Aug. 8, there have been 642,572 initial claims filed in 2020, 620,920 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, rose to 335,968, an increase from the previous week of 8,014 claims, or 2.4%.

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, rose by 0.6 percentage points to 24.2%. 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 12,606 initial claims filed in the week ending Aug. 8, a decrease of 5,889, or 31.8%, from last week’s total of 18,495.

This is the fewest PUA initial claims filed in a week since the start of the program. Through the week ending Aug. 8, 397,709 PUA initial claims have been filed.

PUA continued claims totaled 117,349 in the week ending Aug. 8, a decline of 21,134 from the previous week’s revised total of 138,483. 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 18,018 claims filed in the week, an increase of 2,401 claims from a week ago.

Nevada’s State Extended Benefit program, which provides up to 13 weeks of benefits to individuals who have exhausted both their regular unemployment benefits and PEUC program benefits, saw 1,104 claims filed in the week, an increase of 206 claims from a week ago.

Nationally, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted regular initial claims was 963,000 a decrease of 228,000 claims from the previous week’s revised level of 1,191,000. This is the first week since March that the national figure was below 1,000,000 claims.

The national insured unemployment rate for the week ending Aug. 1 was 10.6 percent, a decrease of 0.4 percentage points from the previous week’s revised rate. The national rate is reported with a one-week lag.