Nevada's jobless numbers continue decline; 7,951 initial claims filed last week

CARSON CITY, Nev. — On Sept. 11, the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation released updated data that show initial claims for unemployment insurance totaled 7,951 for the week ending Sept. 5, down 81 claims, or 1%, compared to the previous week’s total of 8,032 claims.

It marks the fewest initial claims filed since the week ending March 14.

Through the week ending Sept. 5, 678,351 initial claims have been filed so far in 2020, according to DETR, 656,699 of which have been filed since March 14.

Continued claims, which represent the current number of insured unemployed workers filing weekly for unemployment insurance benefits, fell for the fourth straight week to 216,187, a decline of 5,412 claims, or 2.4%, from the previous week’s total of 221,599.

This is the fewest continued claims since the week ending April 11, when 189,007 were filed, according to DETR's Sept. 11 report.

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 0.4 percentage points to 15.6%.

The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program saw 9,832 initial claims filed, a decrease of 579, or 5.6 %, from the previous week’s total of 10,411. This is the fewest PUA initial claims filed in a week since the start of the program.

Through the week ending Sept. 5, 441,179 PUA initial claims have been filed.

Nationally, according to DETR, the advance figure for unadjusted regular initial claims was 857,148, an increase of 20,140 claims from the previous week. The national insured unemployment rate for the week ending Aug. 29 was 9%, unchanged from the previous week’s rate. The national rate is reported with a one-week lag.

Go here to view the weekly unemployment dashboard for Nevada.