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Number of unemployment claims filed in Nevada breaks previous record set in 2009

Posted at 2:28 PM, Mar 27, 2020
and last updated 2020-03-27 21:15:06-04

According to the finalized initial claims data from the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation (DETR), initial claims for unemployment insurance totaled 92,298 regular initial claims for the week ending March 21, up 85,942 claims, or 1,352 percent compared to last week’s total of 6,356.

This is the highest number of claims in State history by 83,353. The previous high was 8,945 for the week ending January 10, 2009.

Each Thursday, the United States Department of Labor Employment & Training Administration (DETR) releases preliminary unemployment insurance weekly claims data for the prior week.

Following this release, the Nevada Department of Employment, Training, and Rehabilitation may release its finalized claims data for the same period.

Currently, data is available through March 21, 2020. Claims are split into “initial claims,” which correspond to recent layoffs, and “continued claims” which are the regular process of requesting benefits for a particular week.

Claimants will typically have a single initial claim, followed by a period of weekly continued claims.

The finalized claims number can differ from the preliminary claims number, as the finalized number does not include interstate claims.

Nationally, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims rose to 3,283,000, an increase of 3,001,000 from the previous week's revised level for the week ending March 21.

This is the highest level of seasonally adjusted initial claims in the history of the series.

he previous high was 695,000 in October of 1982.

Similar to the nation, initial claims in Nevada rose to unprecedented levels in the week due to the temporary closure of business functions throughout the state. Continued claims, which move slightly behind initial claims, rose slightly in the week to 19,822 from last week’s total of 19,475. Continued claims levels are expected to rise significantly next week.