RICHMOND—The Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) announced that the number of continued claims filed during the September 12 filing week was fifty percent lower than their May 16 filing week peak, according to figures released today.

For the filing week ending September 12, the figure for seasonally unadjusted initial claims in Virginia was 10,100. The latest claims figure was a decrease of 1,035 claimants from the previous week, and the lowest weekly total since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic’s employment impacts in mid-March.

For the most recent filing week, continued weeks claimed totaled 201,616, which was a 7.3% decrease from the previous week, but 183,773 higher than the 17,843 continued claims from the comparable week last year. They also declined by 50% 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 12, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 860,000, a decrease of 33,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 9,000 from 884,000 to 893,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 790,021 in the week ending September 12, a decrease of 75,974 (or -8.8 percent) from the previous week. There were 173,134 initial claims in the comparable week in 2019. Looking at preliminary data, most states reported decreases on a seasonally unadjusted basis. Texas’s preliminary weekly change (-15,647) was the largest decrease among states. Others included California (-13,179), Louisiana (-9,257), Georgia (-8,240), and Florida (-6,435). Virginia’s preliminary weekly change (+486) was the seventh largest increase.