RICHMOND—The Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) announced that the number of initial claims filed during the most recent filing week were 95% lower than in the comparable week in 2020 when pandemic employment impacts were near their peak.

For the filing week ending April 10, the figure for seasonally unadjusted initial claims in Virginia was 5,034. The latest claims figure was a decrease of 23,492 claimants from the previous week. This brought the total number of claims filed since the March 27, 2020 filing week to 1,587,729, compared to the 477,600 average filed during the previous three economic recessions since 1990.

For the most recent filing week, continued weeks claimed totaled 57,371, which was unchanged from the previous week, but 179,420 lower than the 236,791 continued claims from the comparable week last year. Over half of claims that had a self-reported industry were in the accommodation/food service, administrative and waste services, retail trade, and healthcare/social assistance industries. The continued claims total is mainly comprised of those recent initial claimants who continued to file for unemployment insurance benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic.

For additional information on who is claiming unemployment insurance in Virginia, access the VEC’s    U.I. claims data dashboard (https://www.vec.virginia.gov/ui-claims-dashboard) that is updated no later than the following Monday after the weekly claims press release.