Nevada employment office cancels weekly updates
The state Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation canceled its weekly media briefing Friday to update Nevadans about unemployment insurance, citing Gov. Steve Sisolak’s recent announcement of new agency leadership as the reason.
“In light of recent Department leadership announcements, DETR’s weekly press conferences have been cancelled,” the agency said in a statement Friday. “Staff will be examining current processes to provide the press and the public transparent and timely answers, while also doing the important work of the organization.”
On Thursday, Gov. Steve Sisolak named Elisa Cafferata acting director of DETR and announced Barbara Buckley as the leader of a rapid response team on unemployment insurance.
The Department of Labor reported nearly 1.2 million laid-off Americans applied for unemployment last week.
That is a decline from the previous week. Still, it was the 20th straight week that at least 1 million people sought jobless aid. Before the coronavirus pandemic, the number had never surpassed 700,000 in a single week.
Nevada saw 13,727 new claims for state unemployment benefits last week, down 4,663 from the week before, marking the first decline in weekly initial claims since week ending June 20.
There have been 624,817 initial claims filed in 2020, 603,165 of which have been filed since the week ending March 14.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Contact Jonathan Ng at jng@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ByJonathanNg on Twitter.