RICHMOND—The Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) announced that the number of initial claims filed approached pre-pandemic levels during the most recent filing week.

For the filing week ending September 11, the figure for seasonally unadjusted initial claims in Virginia was 3,822. The latest claims figure was a decrease of 2,357 claimants from the previous week, bringing the number of weekly claims filed to their lowest level since 2,706 were filed during the March 14, 2020 filing week.

For the most recent filing week, continued weeks claimed totaled 40,624, which was a decrease of 3,811 claims from the previous week and 80% lower than the 201,616 continued claims from the comparable week last year. Over half of claims that had a self-reported industry were in the health care and social assistance, administrative and waste services industries, retail trade, and accommodation and food services. 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 September 11, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 332,000, an increase of 20,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 2,000 from 310,000 to 312,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 262,619 in the week ending September 11, a decrease of 23,331 (or -8.2 percent) from the previous week. There were 785,842 initial claims in the comparable week in 2020. Looking at preliminary data, more states reported decreases on a seasonally unadjusted basis. Illinois’s preliminary weekly change (-7,561) was the largest decrease. Ohio’s preliminary weekly change (-5,065) was the second largest decrease. Texas’s preliminary weekly change (-4,436) was the third largest decrease. California’s decline was the fourth largest decrease (-2,517). Virginia’s decrease (-1,714) was the seventh largest weekly decrease. Driven by Hurricane Ida, Louisiana’s increase (+4,058) was the largest weekly increase.