RICHMOND—The Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) announced that the number of initial claims filed during the most recent filing week were 75% lower than in the comparable week in 2020 when pandemic employment impacts first began to be felt.
For the filing week ending March 27, the figure for seasonally unadjusted initial claims in Virginia was 28,244. The latest claims figure was an increase of 10,684 claimants from the previous week. This brought the total number of claims filed since the March 27, 2020 filing week to 1,554,169, compared to the 477,600 average filed during the previous three economic recessions since 1990.
For the most recent filing week, continued weeks claimed totaled 57,072, which was a 2.0% decrease from the previous week, but 15,245 higher than the 41,827 continued claims from the comparable week last year. Over half of claims that had a self-reported industry were in the accommodation/food service, administrative and waste services, retail trade, and healthcare/social assistance industries. The continued claims total is mainly comprised of those recent initial claimants who continued to file for unemployment insurance benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic.
For additional information on who is claiming unemployment insurance in Virginia, access the VEC’s U.I. claims data dashboard (https://www.vec.virginia.gov/ui-claims-dashboard) that is updated no later than the following Monday after the weekly claims press release.
Nationwide, in the week ending March 27, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 719,000, an increase of 61,000 from the previous week’s revised level. The previous week’s level was revised down by 26,000 from 684,000 to 658,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 714,433 in the week ending March 27, an increase of 63,282 (or 9.7 percent) from the previous week. There were 5,981,787 initial claims in the comparable week in 2020. Looking at preliminary data, most states reported increases on a seasonally unadjusted basis. Virginia’s preliminary weekly change (+30,696) was the largest increase among states. Kentucky’s preliminary weekly change (+15,869) was the second largest increase. Georgia’s preliminary weekly change (+11,862) was the third largest increase. California’s preliminary weekly change (+9,628) was the fourth largest increase. Ohio’s preliminary weekly change (-15,718) was the largest increase.
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