State’s initial unemployment claims rise 12.4% last week

Finalized data from the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation show initial claims for unemployment insurance totaled 12,484 for the week ending July 4, up 1,374 claims, or 12.4 percent, compared to last week’s total of 11,110.

This is the second consecutive week of increases in regular initial claims. Through the week ending July 4, there have been 562,486 initial claims filed in 2020, 540,834 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 287,968, an increase from the previous week of 1,025 claims, or 0.4 percent. This is the first increase in continued claims following the phased 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, rose by 0.1 percentage points to 20.9 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 62,810 initial claims filed in the week ending July 4, a decrease of 6,334 from last week’s total of 69,144. Since the PUA program began, 285,980 initial claims have been filed, 131,954, or 46.1 percent, in the past two weeks. Given the underlying economic conditions, the significant increases in PUA initial claims are questionable.

PUA continued claims totaled 157,196 in the week ending July 4, a decline of 36,720 from the previous week’s revised total of 193,916. Weekly PUA continued claims are now reported by the benefit week claimed. This follows the reporting procedure for regular unemployment insurance and allows for better understanding of the current 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 9,405 claims filed in the week, an increase of 844 from a week ago.

Nationally, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted regular initial claims was 1,314,000, a decline of 99,000 claims from the previous week’s revised level of 1,427,000. The national insured unemployment rate for the week ending June 27 was 12.4 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.