RICHMOND—The Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) announced that the number of continued claims were essentially unchanged and remained at pre-pandemic levels during the most recent filing week.

For the filing week ending April 2, the figure for seasonally unadjusted initial claims in Virginia was 1,838. The latest claims figure was an increase of 211 claimants from the previous week. Over half of initial claims that had a self-reported industry were in administrative and waste services, retail trade, professional, scientific, and technical services, and manufacturing. 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 6,707, which was an increase of 23 claims from the previous week and was 88% lower than the 57,344 continued claims from the comparable week last year.

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. Weekly demographic claims data will no longer have a report after this week. Demographic data is available on the virginiaworks.com download center unemployment insurance claims files on a monthly basis.

In the week ending April 2, the advance U.S. figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was s 166,000, a decrease of 5,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised down by 31,000 from 202,000 to 171,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 193,137 in the week ending April 2, a decrease of 3,674 (or -1.9 percent) from the previous week. There were 668,346 initial claims in the comparable week in 2021. Looking at preliminary data, most states reported decreases on a seasonally unadjusted basis. Michigan’s preliminary weekly change (-2,599) was the largest decrease. Texas’s weekly change (-2,569) was the second largest decrease. New Jersey’s preliminary weekly change (-1,412) was the third largest decrease. Kentucky’s weekly change (-1,064) was the fourth largest decrease. Virginia’s preliminary weekly change (+415) was the seventh largest increase.