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 2,019 but remained slightly below typical pre-pandemic volumes experienced in 2019.

For the filing week ending December 23, seasonally unadjusted initial claims for unemployment insurance in Virginia were 2,019, which was an increase of 302 claimants from the previous week. Continued weeks claimed totaled 12,341, which was little changed from the previous week but an increase of 33 percent from the 9,286 continued claims from the comparable week last year. An industry was reported for ninety-three percent of continued claims. Of those, over half (58 percent) of continued claims were from administrative and support and waste management (1,769), professional, scientific, and technical services (1,741), manufacturing (1,205), and health care and social assistance (1,087) and construction (894). 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 December 23, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 218,000, an increase of 12,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 1,000 from 205,000 to 206,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 272,610 in the week ending December 23, an increase of 31,570 (or 13.1 percent) from the previous week. There were 269,877 initial claims in the comparable week in 2022.

Looking at preliminary data, most U.S. states reported increases on a seasonally unadjusted basis. California’s preliminary weekly change (+5,594) was the largest increase. Missouri’s preliminary weekly change (+4,556) was the second largest increase. New Jersey’s preliminary weekly change (+4,554) was the third largest increase. Ohio’s preliminary weekly change (+2,593) was the fourth largest increase. Virginia had the 24^th largest increase (+252).

*Continued claims maps are unavailable this week.