RICHMOND—The Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) announced that the number of initial claims filed during the most recent filing week were 83% lower than in the comparable week in 2020 while continued claims were 82% lower.

For the filing week ending April 17, the figure for seasonally unadjusted initial claims in Virginia was 13,751. The latest claims figure was an increase of 8,717 claimants from the previous week. This brought the total number of claims filed since the March 21, 2020 filing week to 1,601,480, 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 55,273, which was a drop of 2,098 claims from the previous week, and 242,720 lower than the 297,993 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 17, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 547,000, a decrease of 39,000 from the previous week's revised level. This is the lowest level for initial claims since March 14, 2020 when it was 256,000. The previous week's level was revised up by 10,000 from 576,000 to 586,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 566,479 in the week ending April 17, a decrease of 56,554 (or -9.1 percent) from the previous week. There were 4,221,556 initial claims in the comparable week in 2020. Looking at preliminary data, most states reported decreases on a seasonally unadjusted basis. Texas’s preliminary weekly change (-23,357) was the largest decrease. New York’s preliminary weekly change (-17,316) was the second largest decrease. Florida’s preliminary weekly change (-8,190) was the third largest decrease. Georgia’s preliminary weekly change (-8,069) was the fourth largest decrease. Virginia’s preliminary weekly change (+9,832) was the largest increase among states. This comes as a partial rebound from the previous filing week’s steep decline in initial claims.