RICHMOND—The Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) announced that the number of continued claims filed during the November 7 filing week remained below 100,000 continuing recent trends, according to figures released today.

For the filing week ending November 14, the figure for seasonally unadjusted initial claims in Virginia was 11,088. The latest claims figure was an increase of 1,179 claimants from the previous week and rose to its highest level in nearly a month.

For the most recent filing week, continued weeks claimed totaled 85,129, which was a 7.4% decrease from the previous week, but 67,529 higher than the 17,600 continued claims from the comparable week last year. Over half of claims were in the accommodation/food service, health care, administrative support, and retail trade industries. 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 November 7, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 742,000, an increase of 31,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 2,000 from 709,000 to 711,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 743,460 in the week ending November 14, an increase of 18,344 (or 2.5 percent) from the previous week. There were 227,892 initial claims in the comparable week in 2019. Looking at preliminary data, most states reported decreases on a seasonally unadjusted basis. Illinois’s preliminary weekly change (-20,632) was the largest decrease among states. Florida’s preliminary weekly change (-9,865) was the second largest decrease. Others included New Jersey (-8,689), Washington (-8,516), Georgia (-4716), and Tennessee (-1,545). Virginia’s preliminary weekly change (+4,180) was the fourth largest increase.