RICHMOND— Virginia Works announced today that 2,045 unemployment insurance weekly initial claims were filed during the week ending July 20, 2024, which is 15.9 percent lower than last week's 2,433 claims and 10.8 percent lower than the comparable week of last year (2,293).  Nearly 78 percent of claimants self-reported an associated industry; of those reported, the top five industries (58 percent) were Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services (201); Administrative and Support and Waste Management (197); Retail Trade (174); Health Care and Social Assistance (168); and Manufacturing (105).

Continued weeks claims (16,721) were 1.0 percent lower than last week (16,886) and were 21.9 percent higher than the comparable week of last year (13,714). Nearly 93 percent of claimants self-reported an associated industry; of those reported, the top five industries (60 percent) were Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services (2,457); Administrative and Support and Waste Management (2,252); Health Care and Social Assistance (1,693); Retail Trade (1,541); and Accommodation and Food Services (1,403).

Significant Layoffs and Announcements are available at the following websites:

WARN Notices | Virginia Employment Commission

Announcements | Virginia Economic Development Partnership

Virginia Continued Weeks Claimed

A person who has already filed an initial claim and who has experienced a week of unemployment files a continued claim to claim benefits for that week of unemployment. On a weekly basis, continued claims reflect a good approximation of the current number of insured unemployed workers filing for UI benefits, and are a good indicator of labor market conditions. While continued claims are not a leading indicator, they provide confirming evidence of the direction of the economy.

The color-coded map below shows the distribution of this week’s continued claims for Virginia’s counties and cities.

Yellow represents low numbers, while progressively darker shades transitioning from yellow to green and dark green  signify increasing numbers of continued claims. The legend located at the bottom provides the color spectrum and its corresponding count of continued claims.

Initial Claims for All States

In the week ending July 20, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 235,000, a decrease of 10,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 2,000 from 243,000 to 245,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 225,090 in the week ending July 20, a decrease of 55,502 (or -19.8 percent) from the previous week. The seasonal factors had expected a decrease of 45,991 (or -16.4 percent) from the previous week. There were 213,497 initial claims in the comparable week in 2023.