RICHMOND—The Virginia Department of Workforce Development and Advancement (DWDA) announced today that the number of initial unemployment insurance claims increased in the latest filing week to 1,800 and remained at typical pre-Pandemic volumes experienced in 2019.

For the filing week ending October 28, the figure for seasonally unadjusted initial claims for unemployment insurance in Virginia was 1,800, which was an increase of 319 claimants from the previous week. Continued weeks claimed totaled 12,337, which was 133 claims higher than the previous week and an increase of 94% from the 6,375 continued claims from the comparable week last year. An industry was reported for ninety-three percent of continued claims. Of those, over half (53 percent) of continued claims were from professional, scientific, and technical services (1,875), administrative and support and waste management (1,683), manufacturing (1,507), and health care and social assistance (1,082). 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 28, the advance U.S. figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 217,000, an increase of 5,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 2,000 from 210,000 to 212,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 196,767 in the week ending October 28, an increase of 2,768 (or 1.4 percent) from the previous week. There were 185,973 initial claims in the comparable week in 2022.

Looking at preliminary data, most U.S. states reported decreases on a seasonally unadjusted basis. New York’s preliminary weekly change (-1,853) was the largest decrease. Oregon’s preliminary weekly change (-995) was the second largest decrease. Georgia’s preliminary weekly change (-532) was the third largest decrease. Florida’s preliminary weekly change (-531) was the fourth largest decrease. Virginia had the ninth largest increase (+276).