Va. new jobless claims dropped 35% last week

Virginia’s initial unemployment claims decreased about 35% last week since the previous week, the Virginia Employment Commission reported Thursday.

For the filing week ending Aug. 28, the state recorded 7,777 new jobless claims, down 4,146 from the previous week. Continued claims totaled 46,471, up 9,396 claims from the previous week.

Compared to the same week last year, continued claims were 80% lower than the 233,467 in that week, while initial claims were about 25% lower than a year ago, when new claims totaled 10,305.

This brought the total number of claims filed since March 21,2020 to 1,789,879, according the VEC.

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

The VEC has started notifying people who are receiving the benefits that all federal unemployment COVID-19 benefits will come to an end on Sept. 4. That includes the $300 a week supplemental unemployment benefit.

VEC is under court order to get through a backlog of 92,000 cases by Labor Day. The agency had filed for dismissal of the suit, saying it had resolved 98% of the disputed unemployment claims, but U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson declined to dismiss the suit on Tuesday.

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

The regions of the state that have been most impacted continue to be Northern Virginia, Richmond and Hampton Roads, with the Roanoke valley seeing a slight increase in continued and initial claims last week.

Nationwide, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims last week was 340,000, a decrease of 14,000 from the previous week’s revised level. There were 827,261 initial claims in the comparable week last year.