RICHMOND—The Department of Workforce Development and Advancement (DWDA) announced today that the number of initial unemployment insurance claims decreased in the latest filing week to 1,481 and remained at typical pre-Pandemic volumes experienced in 2019.

For the filing week ending October 21, the figure for seasonally unadjusted initial claims for unemployment insurance in Virginia was 1,481, which was a decrease of 174 claimants from the previous week. Continued weeks claimed totaled 12,204, which was 151 claims lower than the previous week but an increase of 98% from the 6,152 continued claims from the comparable week last year. An industry was reported for ninety-three percent of claimants. Of those, over half (54 percent) of continued claims were from professional, scientific, and technical services (1,838), administrative and support and waste management (1,645), manufacturing (1,506), and health care and social assistance (1,117). 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.

In the week ending October 21, the advance U.S. figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 210,000, an increase of 10,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 2,000 from 198,000 to 200,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs[1], unadjusted, totaled 191,892 in the week ending October 21, an increase of 9,498 (or 5.2 percent) from the previous week. There were 184,420 initial claims in the comparable week in 2022.

Looking at preliminary data, most U.S. states reported increases on a seasonally unadjusted basis. Oregon’s preliminary weekly change (+2,477) was the largest increase. New York’s preliminary weekly change (+2,093) was the second largest increase. Pennsylvania’s preliminary weekly change (+1,234) was the third largest increase. Georgia’s preliminary weekly change (+1,064) was the fourth largest increase. Virginia had the fifth largest decrease (-227).