With some Nevada businesses shutting down again later Friday, that means more people will be filing for unemployment benefits.

The Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation gave an update on unemployment in our state earlier on Friday.

DETR says it expects to launch Employ NV this weekend that will be used to verify claimants' eligibility for unemployment insurance.

Officials say that functionality with Pandemic Unemployment Assistance is also expected to be available by the middle of the month.

DETR says it has paid more than $4.3 billion across all of the unemployment programs since the start of the pandemic.

Finalized data from DETR show initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) totaled 12,484 for the week ending July 4, up 1,374 claims, or 12.4%, compared to last week’s total of 11,110. It is the second consecutive week of increases in regular initial claims. Through the week ending July 4, there have been 562,486 initial claims filed in 2020, 540,834 of which have been filed since the week ending March 14.

Continued claims, which represent the current number of insured unemployed workers filing weekly for unemployment insurance benefits, rose to 287,968, an increase from the previous week of 1,025 claims, or 0.4%. This is the first increase in continued claims following the phased re-opening of businesses across the state.

 

(DETR contributed to this report.)

 

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