RICHMOND—The Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) announced that the number of initial claims filed during the most recent filing week were 83% lower than during the comparable week in 2020.

For the filing week ending July 17, the figure for seasonally unadjusted initial claims in Virginia was 6,304. The latest claims figure was an increase of 352 claimants from the previous week. This brought the total number of claims filed since the March 21, 2020 filing week to 1,740,153, 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 35,202, which was a decrease of 1,135 claims from the previous week, and 90% lower than the 357,098 continued claims from the comparable week last year. Over half of claims that had a self-reported industry were in the administrative and waste services, accommodation and food services, health care and social assistance, and retail trade 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.

Nationwide, in the week ending July 17, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was   419,000, an increase of 51,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 8,000 from 360,000 to 368,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled  406,053 in the week ending July 17, an increase of 14,479 (or 3.7 percent) from the previous week. There were 1,373,239 initial claims in the comparable week in 2020. Looking at preliminary data, more states reported decreases on a seasonally unadjusted basis. New York’s preliminary weekly change (-11,031) was the largest decrease. Oklahoma’s preliminary weekly change (-4,225) was the second largest decrease. Puerto Rico’s preliminary weekly change (-3,998) was the third largest decrease. Tennessee’s decline was the fourth largest increase (-3,507). Virginia’s increase (+812) was the 12th largest increase.