Weekly Initial Claims

RICHMOND— Virginia Works announced today that 2,417 unemployment insurance weekly initial claims were filed during the week ending December 14, 2024, which is 12.6 percent lower than last week’s 2,764 claims and 40.8 percent higher than the comparable week of last year (1,717).  Nearly 80 percent of claimants self-reported an associated industry; of those reported, the top five industries (59 percent) were Administrative and Support and Waste Management (273); Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services (233); Accommodation and Food Services (212); Construction (199); and Health Care and Social Assistance (171).

Continued weeks claims (15,657) were 2.2 percent higher than last week (15,318) and were 27.7 percent higher than the comparable week of last year (12,258). Nearly 92 percent of claimants self-reported an associated industry; of those reported, the top five industries (59 percent) were Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services (2,455); Administrative and Support and Waste Management (2,000); Health Care and Social Assistance (1,464); Manufacturing (1,334); and Retail Trade (1,221).

Significant Layoffs and Announcements are available at the following websites:

WARN Notices | Virginia Employment Commission

Announcements | Virginia Economic Development Partnership

Initial Claims – Comparison of Unemployment Insurance Activity
	Week Ending12/14/2024	Week Ending12/07/2024	Week Ending11/30/2024	Last Year12/16/2023
Initial Claims	2,417	2,764	1,284	1,717
Initial Change (%)	-347 (-12.6%)	+1480 (+115.3%)	-960 (-42.8%)	+700 (+40.8%)
Continued Claims	15,657	15,318	15,070	12,258

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 December 14, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 220,000, a decrease of 22,000 from the previous week’s unrevised level of 242,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 251,527 in the week ending December 14, a decrease of 57,932 (or 18.7 percent) from the previous week. The seasonal factors had expected a decrease of 32,854 (or 10.6 percent) from the previous week. There were 241,040 initial claims in the comparable week in 2023.

Initial State Claims (5 largest decreases) (Not Seasonally Adjusted)
State	Initial Claims (this week)	Initial Claims (prior week)	Change
New York	16,892	23,388	-6,496
Texas	15,286	20,951	-5,665
Georgia	4,802	9,717	-4,915
California	47,542	52,368	-4,826
Pennsylvania	14,823	19,609	-4,786

Initial State Claims (5 largest increases) (Not Seasonally Adjusted)
State	Initial Claims (this week)	Initial Claims (prior week)	Change
Kentucky	3,575	2,942	633
Nebraska	1,583	1,229	354
Colorado	3,764	3,471	293
Rhode Island	1,376	1,273	103
Delaware	397	300	97

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