RICHMOND—The Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) announced that the number of initial claims filed during the most recent filing week were 86% lower than during the comparable week in 2020.

For the filing week ending July 24, the figure for seasonally unadjusted initial claims in Virginia was 6,178. The latest claims figure was a decrease of 126 claimants from the previous week. This brought the total number of claims filed since the March 21, 2020 filing week to 1,746,331, 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 33,603, which was a decrease of 1,599 claims from the previous week, and 90% lower than the 344,826 continued claims from the comparable week last year. Over half of claims that had a self-reported industry were in the health care and social assistance, administrative and waste services, accommodation and food services, 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 July 24, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was   400,000, a decrease of 24,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 5,000 from 419,000 to 424,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 344,653 in the week ending July 24, a decrease of 66,591 (or -16.2 percent) from the previous week. There were 1,202,278 initial claims in the comparable week in 2020. Looking at preliminary data, more states reported decreases on a seasonally unadjusted basis. Pennsylvania’s preliminary weekly change (-21,505) was the largest decrease. Texas’s preliminary weekly change (-11,886) was the second largest decrease. Illinois’s preliminary weekly change (-7,860) was the third largest decrease. Kentucky’s decline was the fourth largest increase (-7,232). Virginia’s increase (+454) was the fourth largest increase.