Seasonal layoffs drive initial Nevada unemployment claims higher
In November, 16,389 initial claims for unemployment insurance were filed in Nevada, up from October when they were at 14,124, and up 12 percent from November 2013 when there were 14,673 initial claims.
Data behind the overall initial claim counts indicates this increase was driven by a type of claim known as additional claims, said Bill Anderson, chief economist for Nevada’s Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation, in a news release.
Additional claims are filed when a claimant is filing for unemployment benefits, stops for a time due to finding employment, and subsequently has to resume filing for unemployment, Anderson said. Therefore this type of claim is more closely tied to the end of temporary, short-term work as opposed to layoffs of long-term employees. Almost 90 percent of the 1,716 rise in claims from November 2013 came from an increase of 1,493 in additional claims.
As a result, the increase in total initial claims is being driven by higher levels of employment in industries that rely more on temporary and seasonal work.
While initial claims are up over the year, overall improvement is evident.
“As we’ve been suggesting of late, initial claims activity appears to have stabilized,” Anderson said. “Underlying trends suggest claims have declined from recessionary levels in excess of 30,000 per month to around 15,000. In fact, so far this year, claims activity has fluctuated in a fairly narrow range of 12,500 per month to nearly 17,000. Over the course of the past six months, there have been three year-over-year declines, and three increases in claims activity, including November’s.”
Overall, with the level of claims already at a steady-state level it is likely that over the next 12-24 months initial claims will begin to generally rise, driven by the growing employment base in the state, Anderson said. In the near term, initial claims are expected to continue rising month-to- month until peaking for the year in December or January.