Virginia’s Latest Unemployment Insurance Weekly Initial Claims at 2,164

RICHMOND— Virginia Works announced today that 2,164 unemployment insurance weekly initial claims were filed during the week ending September 14, 2024, which is 1.6 percent higher than last week's 2,129 claims and 45.5 percent higher than the comparable week of last year (1,487).  Nearly 83 percent of claimants self-reported an associated industry; of those reported, the top five industries (58 percent) were Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services (251); Administrative and Support and Waste Management (217); Health Care and Social Assistance (186); Manufacturing (173); and Retail Trade (170).

Continued weeks claims (14,749) were 1.7 percent lower than last week (15,006) and were 11.0 percent higher than the comparable week of last year (13,286). 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 (2,402); Administrative and Support and Waste Management (2,031); Health Care and Social Assistance (1,430); Retail Trade (1,222); and Manufacturing (1,116).

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 September 14, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 219,000, a decrease of 12,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 1,000 from 230,000 to 231,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 184,845 in the week ending September 14, an increase of 6,436 (or 3.6 percent) from the previous week. The seasonal factors had expected an increase of 16,156 (or 9.1 percent) from the previous week. There were 176,586 initial claims in the comparable week in 2023.