County filings down
CARSON CITY – Finalized data from the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation (DETR) show initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) totaled 7,525 for the week ending Sept. 26, down 673 claims, or 8.2 percent, compared to last week’s total of 8,198 claims. This is the lowest weekly total of initial claims filed since mid-March. Through the week ending September 26, there have been 704,670 initial claims filed in 2020, 680,754 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 seventh consecutive week to 190,613, a decline of 12,795 claims, or 6.3 percent, from the previous week’s total of 203,408. This is the fewest continued claims since the report week ending April 11 when there were 189,007 claims filed.
Lincoln County recorded just two initial claims for the week ending Sept. 26 and 45 continued claims. Those numbers are down from five and 51 during the previous week.
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 (also known as covered employment), fell by 1.0 percentage points to 13.7 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 (PUA) program, which provides up to 46 weeks of benefits for the self-employed, 1099 contract workers, and gig workers saw 11,198 initial claims filed in the week September 26, a decrease of 240, or 2.1 percent, from last week’s total of 11,438. Through the week ending September 26, 474,133 PUA initial claims have been filed.
PUA continued claims totaled 95,829 in the week ending September 26, a decline of 5,964, or 5.2 percent, from the previous week’s revised total of 101,064. 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 (PEUC) program, which provides up to 13 weeks of benefits to individuals who have exhausted their regular unemployment benefits, saw 37,346 claims filed in the week, an increase of 5,964 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 (SEB) program, which provides up to 20 weeks of benefits to individuals who have exhausted both their regular unemployment benefits and PEUC program benefits, saw 4,146 claims filed in the week, an increase of 379 claims from a week ago.
Nationally, the advance figure for unadjusted regular initial claims was, 786,942 a decrease of 40,263 claims from the previous week. The national insured unemployment rate for the week ending September 19 was 7.8 percent, a 0.7 percentage point decline from the previous week’s rate. The national rate is reported with a one-week lag.
Unemployment filing is available at http://ui.nv.gov/css.html or (888) 890-8211. Claimants are encouraged to file online, if possible.
For Nevada workers who are self-employed, 1099 contract workers, and gig workers, Nevada’s Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program (PUA) is available. For further information regarding the PUA program visit detr.nv.gov/pua#. Individuals can file online at www.employnv.gov or call the PUA Call Center at (800) 603-9681.Employers and individuals who believe they have been a victim of unemployment fraud, can file a report with the agency by visiting www.detr.nv.gov and selecting the Fraud Reporting Form on the left under “Quick links.”