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

For the filing week ending July 16, the figure for seasonally unadjusted initial claims in Virginia was 2,066. The latest claims figure was an increase of 356 claimants from the previous week. Over half of initial claims that had a self-reported industry were in administrative and support and waste management, health care and social assistance, retail trade, professional, scientific and technical services, and accommodation and food services. 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 10,636, which was an increase of 528 claims from the previous week but was 70% lower than the 35,202 continued claims from the comparable week last year.

In the week ending July 16, the advance U.S. figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 251,000, an increase of 7,000 from the previous week's unrevised level of 244,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 248,991 in the week ending July 16, an increase of 7,853 (or 3.3 percent) from the previous week. There were 411,244 initial claims in the comparable week in 2021. Looking at preliminary data, the majority of U.S. states reported decreases on a seasonally unadjusted basis. New York’s preliminary weekly change (-7,059) was the largest decrease. Ohio’s weekly change (-3,752) was the second largest decrease. New Jersey’s preliminary weekly change    (-2,023) was the third largest decrease. Kentucky’s weekly change (-1,873) was the fourth largest decrease. Virginia’s preliminary weekly change (+576) was the eighth largest increase.