Continuing benefit claims decrease for eighth straight week as initial claims tick up

The number of insured unemployed workers in Nevada decreased a bit last week for the eighth straight week.

There are now 190,613 people receiving continued benefits, the lowest number since the week ending April 4.

But officials at the Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation said the number of initial claims for benefits increased a bit to 7,941. That is an increase of 416 claims for the week ending Oct. 3.

The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program (PUA) also saw a decline in continuing claims but just by 1.3 percent to 94,559. Initial PUA claims also decreased for that week and by 15.7 percent to 9,439. The PUA program provides benefits to the self-employed and other workers who don’t normally qualify for regular unemployment benefits.

The other two programs managed by the Employment Security Division both saw increases in claims. They are the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program that provides 13 weeks of benefits to those who have exhausted their regular benefits and the State Extended Benefits program that provides 20 weeks of payments to those who have exhausted both regular and PUEC claims.

PUEC saw 50,782 new claims, up 13,436 from the previous week. The SEB program received 4,589 new claims, up 443 from the week before.

There were 1,475 continued claims in Carson City and 345 in Churchill County. Douglas County reported 1,072 and Lyon 1,137.

Washoe has 12,975 people receiving benefit checks and Clark County 156,342.

There were just 128 new claims in Carson City, 29 in Churchill, 85 in Douglas and 106 in Lyon County.