RICHMOND—The Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) announced that the latest number of weekly initial claims filed fell to less than one tenth of their pandemic peak set during the April 4, 2020 filing week.
For the filing week ending August 8, the figure for seasonally unadjusted initial claims in Virginia was 13,265. The latest claims figure was a decrease of 10,653 claimants from the previous week, and resulted in a decline of 69% over the last two filing weeks.
For the most recent filing week, continued weeks claimed totaled 264,410, down 66,991 from the previous week, but 244,425 higher than the 19,985 continued claims from the comparable week last year. They have trended downward over the last three months and accelerated their decline during the most recent filing week. 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 August 8, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 963,000, a decrease of 228,000 from the previous week’s revised level. The previous week’s level was revised up by 5,000 from 1,186,000 to 1,191,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 831,856 in the week ending August 8, a decrease of 156,453 (or -15.8 percent) from the previous week. There were 186,914 initial claims in the comparable week in 2019. Looking at preliminary data, most states reported decreases while four states reported weekly decreases of 10,000 or more on a seasonally unadjusted basis. Florida’s preliminary weekly change (-23,180) was the largest drop among states. Other decreases over 10,000 included New York (-21,905), Georgia (-11,652), and Texas (-11,233). Virginia’s preliminary weekly change (-9,157) was the fifth largest decline among states.
