RICHMOND—The Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) announced that the number of initial claims filed from mid-March through the September 26, 2020 filing week totaled 1,167,032, or 28.4%, of pre-pandemic payroll employment, according to figures released today.

For the filing week ending September 26, the figure for seasonally unadjusted initial claims in Virginia was 9,377. The latest claims figure was a decrease of 1,205 claimants from the previous week and continued 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 173,717, which was a 7.7% decrease from the previous week, but 156,577 higher than the 17,140 continued claims from the comparable week last year. They have declined at a consistent pace since mid-August—around 6.8% a week. 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 26, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 837,000, a decrease of 36,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 3,000 from 870,000 to 873,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 786,942 in the week ending September 26, a decrease of 40,263 (or -4.9 percent) from the previous week. There were 172,968 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 (-9,668) was the largest decrease among states. Others included Texas (-8,353), Georgia (-6,349), New York (-3,222), and Oregon (-2,762). Virginia’s preliminary weekly change (+681) was the seventh largest increase.