RICHMOND— In figures released today, the Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) announced that The COVID-19 virus continues to impact the number of initial claims and its impact is also reflected in increasing levels of insured unemployment.

For the filing week ending April 4, the figure for seasonally unadjusted initial claims in Virginia was 147,369. This brings the sum of March 21, March 28, and April 4 weekly initial claims filings to 306,143, which equals all of the previous weeks' claims from 2018, 2019, and 2020 combined. The latest jump was an increase of 34,872 claimants from the previous week and may indicate a deceleration, or ‘flattening of the curve,’ after late-March’s steep trajectory of weekly increases.

Initial claims measure emerging unemployment and the continued increase in initial claims in the Commonwealth is clearly attributable to impacts from the COVID-19 virus. While accommodation and food service sectors initially were most affected, impacts have broadened to include more jobs in other sectors like manufacturing, transportation, and even certain types of health care. After weeks of unprecedented initial claims filing volumes, continued claims—or the number of persons continuing to claim unemployment benefits—have also begun climbing rapidly. For the most recent filing week, continued weeks claimed totaled 133,184, tripling the number from the previous week and 113,164 higher than 20,020 continued claims from the comparable week last year.

The numbers of initial claims filed during the week ending April 4, 2020 was 67.4 times higher than the comparable 2019 week—an increase of 145,182 claims.