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

For the filing week ending June 11, the figure for seasonally unadjusted initial claims in Virginia was 1,498. The latest claims figure was an increase of 367 claimants from the previous week. Over half of initial claims that had a self-reported industry were in administrative and waste services, accommodation and food services, health care and social assistance, professional, scientific, and technical services, and retail trade. 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 9,101, which was a decrease of 667 claims from the previous week and was 80% lower than the 44,793 continued claims from the comparable week last year.

In the week ending June 11, the advance U.S. figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 229,000, a decrease of 3,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 3,000 from 229,000 to 232,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 204,461 in the week ending June 11, an increase of 17,695 (or 9.5 percent) from the previous week. There were 407,798 initial claims in the comparable week in 2021. Looking at preliminary data, the majority of U.S. states reported increases on a seasonally unadjusted basis. California’s preliminary weekly change (+4,992) was the largest increase. Pennsylvania’s weekly change (+2,510) was the second largest increase. Illinois’s preliminary weekly change (+2,009) was the third largest increase. Ohio’s weekly change (+1,698) was the fourth largest increase. Virginia’s preliminary weekly change
(+574) was the tenth largest decrease.