RICHMOND—The Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) announced today that the number of initial claims decreased in the latest filing week to 1,417 and remained at typical pre-Pandemic volumes experienced in 2019.

For the filing week ending September 23, the figure for seasonally unadjusted initial claims in Virginia was 1,417, which was a decrease of 70 claimants from the previous week. Continued weeks claimed totaled 12,830, which was 456 claims lower than the previous week but an increase of 34.2% from the 9,563 continued claims from the comparable week last year. An industry was reported for ninety-four percent of claimants. Of those, over half (53 percent) of continued claims were from professional, scientific, and technical services (1,965), administrative and support and waste management (1,728), manufacturing (1,498), and health care and social assistance (1,128). 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 September 23, the advance U.S. figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 204,000, an increase of 2,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 1,000 from 201,000 to 202,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs[1], unadjusted, totaled 174,590 in the week ending September 23, a decrease of 1,996 (or -1.1 percent) from the previous week. There were 153,821 initial claims in the comparable week in 2022.

Looking at preliminary data, most U.S. states reported decreases on a seasonally unadjusted basis. Georgia’s preliminary weekly change (-2,010) was the largest decrease. South Carolina’s preliminary weekly change (-1,308) was the second largest decrease. New York’s preliminary weekly change (-986) was the third largest decrease. Florida’s preliminary weekly change (-743) was the fourth largest decrease. Virginia had the 21st largest decrease (-78).