State’s initial unemployment claims increase 18.3% in week

Finalized data from the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation shows initial claims for unemployment insurance totaled 18,390 for the week ending July 25, up 2,842 claims or 18.3%, compared to last week’s total of 15,548 claims. This is the fifth straight week of increases in regular initial claims.

Through the week ending July 25, there have been 611,090 initial claims filed in 2020, 589,438 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 346,138, an increase from the previous week of 40,061 claims, or 13.1%. This is the fourth consecutive week of increases in continued claims and the largest week-over-week increase since mid-May.

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 2.9 percentage points to 24.9%. 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 34,072 initial claims filed in the week ending July 25, an increase of 16,536, or 74.2%, from last week’s total of 19,557. Since the PUA program began, 366,608 initial claims have been filed.

PUA continued claims totaled 138,702 in the week ending July 25, a decline of 16,536 from the previous week’s revised total of 155,238. 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 14,855 claims filed in the week, an increase of 2,892 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 392 claims filed in the week, an increase of 84 claims from a week ago.

Nationally, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted regular initial claims was 1,434,000, an increase of 12,000 claims from the previous week’s revised level of 1,422,000.

The national insured unemployment rate for the week ending July 18 was 11.6%, an increase of 0.5 percentage points from the previous week’s revised rate. The national rate is reported with a one-week lag.