First-time Nevada jobless claims fall to lowest since 2007

A key indicator of distress in Nevada’s job market sank to a prerecession low in March.

First-time filings for unemployment benefits averaged 12,343 claims in the 12 months prior to March, the state Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation reported Tuesday.

That’s the lowest average since mid-2007, half a year before the recession’s December 2007 start.

The employment department’s figures indicate the statistic continues to fall: February’s claims numbered 11,429, while 10,924 claims came in March.

March’s total was the fewest first-time claims since 2005, though Bill Anderson, the employment department’s chief economist, said the Feb. 29 Leap Day “pulled unemployment insurance activity into the month that would normally have been reported in March.”

Initial claims are the first stage in filing for unemployment benefits, and are thus related more closely to recent job losses than the overall level of unemployment.

First-time claims peaked at 36,414 in December 2008.

The benefits-exhaustion rate, which measures the share of claimants who run out of jobless benefits over the course of a year, also hit a milestone, falling below 40 percent for the first time since April 2008.

Improvements in Nevada’s jobless-claims rate happened amid steep national declines as well.

The number of Americans filing for benefits slumped last week to match a more than 42-year low, indicating employers are upbeat about an economy that bogged down in the first quarter.

Jobless claims dropped by 13,000 to 253,000 in the week ended April 9, equaling a March level that was the lowest since November 1973, said a Thursday report from the Labor Department. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey called for 270,000. Continuing claims also declined, to the lowest since mid-October.

Scant dismissals along with persistent additions to headcounts indicate companies are looking beyond recent softness in the economy. A jobless rate near an eight-year low and a healthy employment outlook are among reasons some economists project consumer spending and growth to pick up this quarter.

“Jobless claims are running really low and all other labor market data are telling us that the economy is creating a lot of jobs,” said Patrick Newport, an economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Mass. “This is further confirmation that the labor market is strong.”

The four-week average of continuing claims dropped to 2.18 million, the lowest since November 2000.

Contact Jennifer Robison at jrobison@reviewjournal.com. Follow @_JRobison on Twitter. Bloomberg contributed to this report.