Nevada's initial March unemployment insurance claims see decrease
Submitted by editor on Tue, 04/12/2016 - 7:33am
In March, 10,924 initial claims for unemployment insurance were filed in Nevada, down from February’s total of 11,429, according to figures released Tuesday by the state's Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation. The 12-month average, which best shows the overall trend in claims, fell to 12,343, the lowest value for this measure since mid-2007.
The March figure is the fewest initial claims made in the month since 2005, said Bill Anderson, chief economist for Nevada’s Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation.
“Marking another milestone in the state’s economic recovery, the benefits exhaustion rate slid to 39.7 percent, below 40 percent for the first time since April of 2008,” Anderson said.
An initial claim represents the first stage of filing for unemployment benefits and is therefore most closely related to the number of people who have recently lost their jobs, not the overall level of unemployment.
Initial claims tend to increase on a seasonal basis during the fall and winter months, and then fall during the spring and summer. Initial claims peaked during the recession at 36,414 in December 2008, and the low point for initial claims was 10,924 in March 2016.
“This rate estimates the share of claimants who exhaust all their available unemployment benefits over the course of a year," said Anderson. "Other measures of unemployment insurance activity also fell in March with new initial claims, the primary type of initial claim, declining by 11 percent and other measures related to weekly claim filing down by over 20 percent. Most of the declines related to weekly claim activity are attributable to a calendar effect.
"As mentioned in February’s release, the extra Monday in February pulled unemployment insurance activity into the month that would normally have been reported in March, distorting year-over-year comparisons this month.”
