Virginia’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims for Week Ending May 8th

RICHMOND—The Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) announced that the steady number of initial claims filed during the most recent filing week was a change from the pattern of recent weeks’ fluctuating claims volumes.

For the filing week ending May 8, the figure for seasonally unadjusted initial claims in Virginia was 11,270. The latest claims figure was a decrease of 961 claimants from the previous week. This brought the total number of claims filed since the March 21, 2020 filing week to 1,662,337, 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 57,844, which was an increase of 2,649 claims from the previous week, and 334,829 lower than the 392,673 continued claims from the comparable week last year. Over half of claims that had a self-reported industry were in the accommodation and food services, administrative and waste services, retail trade, and health care and 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 May 8, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was s 473,000, a decrease of 34,000 from the previous week’s revised level. The previous week’s level was revised up by 9,000 from 498,000 to 507,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 487,436 in the week ending May 8, a decrease of 26,286 (or -5.1 percent) from the previous week. There were 2,326,632 initial claims in the comparable week in 2020. Looking at preliminary data, most states reported decreases on a seasonally unadjusted basis. Michigan’s preliminary weekly change (-14,589) was the largest decrease. New York’s preliminary weekly change (-8,441) was the second largest decrease. Vermont’s preliminary weekly change (-5,860) was the third largest decrease. Florida’s decline was the fourth largest decrease (-4,893). Virginia’s negligible rise (+180) was the 17^th largest increase.