Virginia’s Latest Unemployment Insurance Weekly Initial Claims at 2,702; Continued Claims at 16,290

RICHMOND— Virginia Works announced today that 2,702 unemployment insurance weekly initial claims were filed during the week ending August 17, 2024, which is 17.8 percent higher than last week's 2,294 claims and 16.9 percent higher than the comparable week of last year (2,311).  Nearly 82 percent of claimants self-reported an associated industry; of those reported, the top five industries (64 percent) were Manufacturing (401); Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services (251); Administrative and Support and Waste Management (247); Health Care and Social Assistance (205); and Retail Trade (170).

Continued weeks claims (16,290) were 2.3 percent lower than last week (16,675) and were 18.8 percent higher than the comparable week of last year (13,715). Nearly 93 percent of claimants self-reported an associated industry; of those reported, the top five industries (59 percent) were Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services (2,437); Administrative and Support and Waste Management (2,245); Health Care and Social Assistance (1,543); Manufacturing (1,363); and Retail Trade (1,297).

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 August 17, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 232,000, an increase of 4,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 1,000 from 227,000 to 228,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 191,576 in the week ending August 17, a decrease of 9,270 (or 4.6 percent) from the previous week. The seasonal factors had expected a decrease of 11,882 (or 5.9 percent) from the previous week. There were 199,517 initial claims in the comparable week in 2023. 

All States Initial Weeks Claimed

An initial claim is a claim filed by an unemployed individual after a separation from an employer. The count of U.S. initial claims for unemployment insurance is a leading economic indicator because it is an indication of emerging labor market conditions in the country.

Below is a color-coded map illustrating the percentage change in initial claims from last week to this week across all states nationwide, derived from the latest U.S Department of Labor Weekly Claims News Release (https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf). Green denotes a reduction in continued claims from last week, thus showing improvement, with progressively darker shades of green signifying greater improvement. Purple denotes an increase in continued claims from last week,  thus showing deterioration, with progressively darker shades of purple signifying greater deterioration. Very light green, purple or white indicates minimal change from last week. The legend at the bottom provides the color spectrum along with its corresponding percentage value.