RICHMOND—The Virginia Department of Workforce Development and Advancement (DWDA) announced today that the number of initial unemployment insurance claims increased in the latest filing week to 1,717 but remained slightly below typical pre-pandemic volumes experienced in 2019.

For the filing week ending December 16, the figure for seasonally unadjusted initial claims for unemployment insurance in Virginia was 1,717, which was an increase of 48 claimants from the previous week. Continued weeks claimed totaled 12,258, which was little changed from the previous week but an increase of 36% from the 9,027 continued claims from the comparable week last year. An industry was reported for ninety-three percent of continued claims. Of those, over half (59 percent) of continued claims were from professional, scientific, and technical services (1,785), administrative and support and waste management (1,760), manufacturing (1,139), and health care and social assistance (1,097) and retail trade (877). 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.