Unemployment claims rise again, continued claims fall

The Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation announced Friday that initial claims for unemployment insurance totaled 8,964 for the week ending Oct. 10, up 1,023 claims, or 12.9%, compared to last week’s total of 7,941 claims.

Through the week ending Oct. 10, there have been 719,311 initial claims filed in 2020, 697,659 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 ninth consecutive week to 157,205, a decline of 16,424 claims, or 9.5%, from the previous week’s total of 173,629. 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 1.2 percentage points to 11.3%. 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 8,497 initial claims filed in the week ending Oct. 10, a decrease of 942 claims, or 10.0%, from last week’s total of 9,439. Through the week ending Oct. 10, 492,069 PUA initial claims have been filed.

PUA continued claims totaled 91,798 in the week ending October 10, a decline of 7,585, or 7.6%, from the previous week’s revised total of 99,383. 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 63,551 claims filed in the week, an increase of 12,769 claims from a week ago. The increase in the number of PEUC claims over the past several weeks was expected as large shares of claimants began exhausting their regular program 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 5,094 claims filed in the week, an increase of 505 claims from a week ago.

Nationally, the advance figure for unadjusted regular initial claims was, 885,885 an increase of 76,670 claims from the previous week. The national insured unemployment rate for the week ending Oct. 3 was 6.6%, a 0.8 percentage point decline from the previous week’s rate. The national rate is reported with a one-week lag.