Continued claims for regular unemployment benefits in Nevada declined 7.3% in the week ending Feb. 20, a decrease of 5,676 to 71,634 claims, according to new weekly stats released Feb. 26 by the Department of Employment, Training & Rehabilitation In a press release, DETR officials said that is the first significant decline in continued claims this year.
Meanwhile, initial claims for unemployment insurance totaled 7,509, up 131 claims, or 1.8%, compared to the previous week's total of 7,378 claims. There have now been a total of 858,978 initial claims filed since the week ending March 14, 2020, at the onset of the pandemic's economic impacts in the Silver State.
In other news, the state's Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program that provides benefits to those who have exhausted regular benefits also reported a decrease last week — down 2,941 to 56,507 claims.
The third program for those who have expired PEUC benefits is the State Extended Benefits program. As more and more Nevadans run out of benefits in the first two programs, claimants are increasingly filing with SEB. So that program saw 76,143 claims filed last week, an increase of 2,244 claims. Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) claims saw just 6,413 initial claims during the week, about half the number filed in the previous week. Continued PUA claims totaled 89,282 during the week, down 15.5 percent from the previous week.
