CARSON CITY, NV – Finalized data from the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation (DETR) show initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) totaled 8,858 for the week ending August 22, down 2,080 claims, or 19.0 percent, compared to last week’s total of 10,938 claims.
This is the fewest initial claims filed since the week ending March 14. Through the week ending August 22, there have been 662,510 initial claims filed in 2020, 640,716 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 second straight week to 228,203, a decline of 12,143 claims, or 5.1 percent, from the previous week’s total of 240,346. This is the fewest continued claims since the report week ending April 11 when there were 189,007 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 (also known as covered employment), fell by 0.9 percentage points to 16.4 percent.
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 10,871 initial claims filed in the week ending August 22, a decrease of 1,485, or 12.0 percent, from last week’s total of 12,356.
This is the fewest PUA initial claims filed in a week since the start of the program. Through the week ending August 22, 420,936 PUA initial claims have been filed.