RICHMOND—The Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) announced that the number of initial claims filed during the most recent filing week were 81% lower than in the comparable week in 2020 when pandemic employment impacts neared their peak.

For the filing week ending April 3, the figure for seasonally unadjusted initial claims in Virginia was 28,526. The latest claims figure was an increase of 282 claimants from the previous week. This brought the total number of claims filed since the March 27, 2020 filing week to 1,582,695, compared to the 477,600 average filed during the previous three economic recessions since 1990.

For the most recent filing week, continued weeks claimed totaled 57,344, which was a 0.5% increase from the previous week, but 75,840 lower than the 133,184 continued claims from the comparable week last year. Over half of claims that had a self-reported industry were in the accommodation/food service, administrative and waste services, retail trade, and healthcare/social assistance 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 April 3, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 744,000, an increase of 16,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 9,000 from 719,000 to 728,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled  740,787 in the week ending April 3, an increase of 18,172 (or 2.5 percent) from the previous week. There were 6,161,308 initial claims in the comparable week in 2020. Looking at preliminary data, most states reported decreases on a seasonally unadjusted basis. Alabama’s preliminary weekly change (-13,994) was the largest decrease. Ohio’s preliminary weekly change (-10,502) was the second largest decrease. Texas’s preliminary weekly change (-8,034) was the third largest decrease. Georgia’s preliminary weekly change (-7,557) was the fourth largest decrease. Virginia’s preliminary weekly change (+3,136) was the third largest increase among states.