RICHMOND — The Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) announced today that the number of initial claims increased in the latest filing week to 2,816 but remained at the typical pre-Pandemic volumes experienced in 2019.

For the filing week ending July 8, the figure for seasonally unadjusted initial claims in Virginia was 2,816, which was an increase of 329 claimants from the previous week. Continued weeks claimed totaled 13,296, which was 17 claims lower than the previous week and an increase of 31.5% from the 10,108 continued claims from the comparable week last year. Ninety-four percent of claimants self-reported an associated industry, of those reported over half (57 percent) of continued claims were from professional, scientific, and technical services (1,864), administrative and support and waste management (1,825), health care and social assistance (1,234), manufacturing (1,116), and retail trade (1,014).

Eligibility for benefits is determined on a weekly basis, and so not all weekly claims filed result in a benefit payment. This is because the initial claims numbers represent claim applications; claims are then reviewed for eligibility and legitimacy.

In the week ending July 8, the advance U.S. figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 237,000, a decrease of 12,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 1,000 from 248,000 to 249,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs[1], unadjusted, totaled 258,614 in the week ending July 8, an increase of 6,928 (or 2.8 percent) from the previous week. There were 243,485 initial claims in the comparable week in 2022. Looking at preliminary data, most U.S. states reported decreases on a seasonally unadjusted basis. New Jersey’s preliminary weekly change (-3,437) was the largest decrease. Connecticut’s preliminary weekly change (-1,609) was the second largest decrease. Michigan’s preliminary weekly change (-1,545) was the third largest decrease. Florida’s preliminary weekly change (-804) was the fourth largest decrease. Virginia’s preliminary weekly change (+470) was the eleventh largest increase.