Virginia’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims for Week Ending February 27th

RICHMOND—The Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) announced that the number of continued claims filed during the February 27 filing week fell by 577 claims from the previous filing week, according to figures released today.

For the filing week ending February 27, the figure for seasonally unadjusted initial claims in Virginia was 12,155. The latest claims figure was an increase of 211 claimants from the previous week.

For the most recent filing week, continued weeks claimed totaled 63,998, which was a 0.9% decrease from the previous week, but 41,795 higher than the 22,203 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 February 27, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 745,000, an increase of 9,000 from the previous week’s revised level. The previous week’s level was revised up by 6,000 from 730,000 to 736,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 748,078 in the week ending February 27, an increase of 31,519 (or 4.4 percent) from the previous week. There were 216,982 initial claims in the comparable week in 2020. Looking at preliminary data, most states reported decreases on a seasonally unadjusted basis. Missouri’s preliminary weekly change (-10,990) was the largest decrease among states. Michigan’s preliminary weekly change      (-3,243) was the second largest decrease. Wisconsin’s preliminary weekly change (-3,048) was the third largest decrease. Florida’s preliminary weekly change (-2,727) was the fourth largest decrease. Virginia’s preliminary weekly change (+4,586) was the seventh largest increase.