Virginia’s Latest Unemployment Insurance Weekly Initial Claims Down at 2,899; Continued Claims at 17,579

RICHMOND — Virginia Works announced today that 2,899 unemployment insurance weekly initial claims were filed during the week ending February 15, 2025, which is 9.5 percent lower than last week’s 3,202 claims and 27.6 percent higher than the comparable week of last year (2,272). Nearly 74 percent of claimants self-reported an associated industry; of those reported, the top five industries (64 percent) were Manufacturing (400); Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services (378); Administrative and Support and Waste Management (255); Health Care and Social Assistance (181); and Retail Trade (162).

Continued weeks claims
(17,579) were 1.7 percent higher than last week (17,288) and were 11.1 percent higher than the comparable week of last year (15,817). Nearly 92 percent of claimants self-reported an associated industry; of those reported, the top five industries (58 percent) were Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services (2,622); Administrative and Support and Waste Management (2,181); Construction (1,592); Health Care and Social Assistance (1,535); and Manufacturing (1,382).

Significant Layoffs and Announcements are available at the following websites:

WARN Notices | Virginia Works

Announcements | Virginia Economic Development Partnership

Initial Claims – Comparison of Unemployment Insurance Activity
	Week Ending 02/15/2025	Week Ending 02/08/2025	Week Ending 02/01/2025	Last Year 02/17/2024
Initial Claims	2,899	3,202	2,606	2,272
Initial Change (%)	-303 (-9.5%)	+596 (+22.9%)	+84 (+3.3%)	+627 (+27.6%)
Continued Claims	17,579	17,288	17,201	15,817

Virginia Continued Weeks Claimed

A person who has already filed an initial claim and who has experienced a week of unemployment files a continued claim to claim benefits for that week of unemployment. On a weekly basis, continued claims reflect a good approximation of the current number of insured unemployed workers filing for UI benefits, and are a good indicator of labor market conditions. While continued claims are not a leading indicator, they provide confirming evidence of the direction of the economy.

The color-coded map below shows the distribution of this week’s continued claims for Virginia’s counties and cities.

Yellow represents low numbers, while progressively darker shades transitioning from yellow to green and dark green signify increasing numbers of continued claims. The legend located at the bottom provides the color spectrum and its corresponding count of continued claims.

Initial Claims for All States

In the week ending February 15, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 219,000, an increase of 5,000 from the previous week’s revised level. The previous week’s level was revised up by 1,000 from 213,000 to 214,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 222,627 in the week ending February 15, a decrease of 10,118 (or 4.3 percent) from the previous week. The seasonal factors had expected a decrease of 15,416 (or 6.6 percent) from the previous week. There were 199,337 initial claims in the comparable week in 2024.

Initial State Claims (5 largest decreases) (Not Seasonally Adjusted)

State	Initial Claims (this week)	Initial Claims (prior week)	Change
California	45,623	50,545	-4,922
Florida	5,615	6,778	-1,163
Pennsylvania	11,322	12,482	-1,160
New Jersey	9,428	10,442	-1,014
Maryland	2,354	3,175	-821

Initial State Claims (5 largest increases) (Not Seasonally Adjusted)

State	Initial Claims (this week)	Initial Claims (prior week)	Change
Kentucky	5,118	2,085	3,033
Tennessee	5,645	2,892	2,753
Washington	7,768	7,114	654
Michigan	7,734	7,274	460
Oregon	5,585	5,224	361

All States Initial Weeks Claimed

An initial claim is a claim filed by an unemployed individual after a separation from an employer. The count of U.S. initial claims for unemployment insurance is a leading economic indicator because it is an indication of emerging labor market conditions in the country.

Below is a color-coded map illustrating the percentage change in initial claims from last week to this week across all states nationwide, derived from the latest U.S Department of Labor Weekly Claims News Release (https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf). Green denotes a reduction in continued claims from last week, thus showing improvement, with progressively darker shades of green signifying greater improvement. Purple denotes an increase in continued claims from last week, thus showing deterioration, with progressively darker shades of purple signifying greater deterioration. Very light green, purple or white indicates minimal change from last week. The legend at the bottom provides the color spectrum along with its corresponding percentage value.

PDF of Press Release