RICHMOND—The Department of Workforce Development and Advancement (DWDA) announced today that the number of initial claims decreased in the latest filing week to 1,378 and remained at typical pre-Pandemic volumes experienced in 2019.
For the filing week ending October 7, the figure for seasonally unadjusted initial claims in Virginia was 1,378, which was a decrease of 370 claimants from the previous week. Continued weeks claimed totaled 12,360, which was 235 claims lower than the previous week but an increase of 100% from the 6,172 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 (1,851), administrative and support and waste management (1,689), manufacturing (1,598), and health care and social assistance (1,111). 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 7, the advance U.S. figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 209,000, unchanged from the previous week’s revised level. The previous week’s level was revised up by 2,000 from 207,000 to 209,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs[1], unadjusted, totaled 197,475 in the week ending October 7, an increase of 22,774 (or 13.0 percent) from the previous week. There were 198,340 initial claims in the comparable week in 2022.
Looking at preliminary data, most U.S. states reported increases on a seasonally unadjusted basis. California’s preliminary weekly change (+4,230) was the largest increase. Texas’s preliminary weekly change (+2,791) was the second largest increase. Michigan’s preliminary weekly change (+1,907) was the third largest increase. Illinois’s preliminary weekly change (+1,904) was the fourth largest increase. Virginia had the second largest decrease (-592).
[1] Note: Advance claims are not directly comparable to claims reported in prior weeks. Advance claims are reported by the state liable for paying the unemployment compensation, whereas previous weeks reported claims reflect claimants by state of residence. In addition, claims reported as workshare equivalent in the previous week are added to the advance claims as a proxy for the current week’s workshare equivalent activity.
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