Va. new jobless claims drop under 2,000

Virginia’s new unemployment claims fell dramatically last week, the Virginia Employment Commission reported Thursday.

For the filing week ending Oct. 16, Virginians filed 1,967 initial claims, a decrease of 7,380 claims from the week before. Continued claims totaled 58,421, an increase of 11,954 claims from the previous week.

Compared to the same week last year, initial claims were about 83% lower than the 11,365 recorded then. Continued claims were 55% lower than the 129,300 claims from the comparable week last year.

People receiving unemployment benefits through the VEC must file weekly unemployment claims in order to continue receiving benefits.

The majority of the claimants who filed for benefits last week reported being in these industries: health care and social assistance; retail; accommodations/food service; and administrative and waste services.

The VEC has been under scrutiny this year for backlogs of claims and most recently, for delaying the launch of its updated claims system from Oct. 1 to November.

Nationwide, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims last week was 290,000, a decrease of 6,000 from the previous week’s revised level. There were 759,081 initial claims in the comparable week in 2020.