RICHMOND—The Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) announced that the number of initial claims filed from mid-March through the September 5, 2020 filing week totaled 1,136,973, which was nearly 28% of pre-pandemic, payroll employment, according to figures released today.

For the filing week ending September 5, the figure for seasonally unadjusted initial claims in Virginia was 11,135. The latest claims figure was an increase of 830 claimants from the previous week, continuing the overall trend of lower claims volumes seen in recent months following April’s peak.

For the most recent filing week, continued weeks claimed totaled 217,485, which was a 6.8% decrease from the previous week, but 200,069 higher than the 17,416 continued claims from the comparable week last year. They also declined by 46.1% from their May 16, 2020 filing week peak of 403,557 claims. 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. 

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 September 5, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 884,000, unchanged from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 3,000 from 881,000 to 884,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 857,148 in the week ending September 5, an increase of 20,140 (or 2.4 percent) from the previous week. There were 160,342 initial claims in the comparable week in 2019. Looking at preliminary data, most states reported decreases on a seasonally unadjusted basis. Florida’s preliminary weekly change (-9,049) was the largest decrease among states. Others included Kentucky (-7,486), Michigan (-5,609), Illinois (-2,889), and Pennsylvania (-2,835). Virginia’s preliminary weekly change (+3,704) was the fifth largest increase.