RICHMOND—The Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) announced that the number of initial claims fell toward more typical pre-Pandemic levels during the most recent filing week.

For the filing week ending December 4th — amid processing system changes in recent weeks — the figure for seasonally unadjusted initial claims in Virginia was 3,450. The latest claims figure was a decrease of 3,096 claimants from the previous week. 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.

For the most recent filing week, continued weeks claimed totaled 14,598, which was an increase of 681 claims from the previous week and 80% lower than the 73,804 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 industries, professional and business services, administrative and waste services, retail trade, and manufacturing 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.

In the week ending December 4, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 184,000, a decrease of 43,000 from the previous week's revised level. This is the lowest level for initial claims since September 6, 1969 when it was 182,000. The previous week's level was revised up by 5,000 from 222,000 to 227,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 280,665 in the week ending December 4, an increase of 63,680 (or 29.3 percent) from the previous week. There were 946,661 initial claims in the comparable week in 2020. Looking at preliminary data, more states reported increases on a seasonally unadjusted basis. California’s preliminary weekly change (+9,772) was the largest increase. Texas’s preliminary weekly change (+7,969) was the second largest increase. New York’s preliminary weekly change (+7,868) was the third largest increase. Michigan’s weekly change (+4,179) was the fourth largest increase. Virginia’s preliminary weekly change (-2,820) was the largest decrease.