RICHMOND—The Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) announced that the number of initial claims filed from mid-March through the June 27, 2020 filing week totaled 906,734 or 22% of pre-pandemic, nonfarm employment, according to figures released today.

For the filing week ending June 27, the figure for seasonally unadjusted initial claims in Virginia was 31,955. The latest claims figure was an increase of 6,662 claimants from the previous week. The weekly total was the highest since May, but still well below the initial spike in unemployment insurance claims during the March 21 filing week.   

For the most recent filing week, continued weeks claimed totaled 366,714, down 8,865 from the previous week, but 346,917 higher than the 19,797 continued claims from the comparable week last year. The continued claims total is mainly comprised of those recent initial claimants who continued to file for unemployment insurance benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic. Continued claims during the June 27 filing week equaled 40% of all initial claims filed during the pandemic to this point. This percentage has trended downward in recent weeks.

For additional information on who is claiming unemployment insurance in Virginia, access the VEC’s    U.I. claims data dashboard (https://www.vec.virginia.gov/ui-claims-dashboard) that is updated no later than the following Monday after the weekly claims press release.

Nationwide, in the week ending June 27, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 1,427,000, a decrease of 55,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 2,000 from 1,480,000 to 1,482,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 1,445,481 in the week ending June 27, a decrease of 14,575 (or -1.0 percent) from the previous week. There were 224,565 initial claims in the comparable week in 2019. Most states reported decreases while three states reported weekly decreases greater than 10,000. These were in Oklahoma (-41,933), Florida (-11,075), and Maryland (-10,620). Virginia’s weekly change was the fourth largest increase among states.