Va. new jobless claims nearly flat

Virginia’s new unemployment claims rose slightly more than 7% last week, the Virginia Employment Commission reported late Thursday.

For the filing week ending Oct. 9, people filed 10,040 initial claims, an increase of 680 from last week. Continued claims totaled 43,535, a decrease of 484 claims from the previous week. Because of the Monday holiday, this is a state estimate.

Compared to the same week last year, initial claims were 10.2% higher than a year ago, when the state recorded 9,110 claims, and continued claims were 69% lower than the 142,220 continued claims recorded a year ago.

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; administrative and waste services; retail; and accommodations/food service.

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. According to 13NewsNow reporting, some claimants this week have reported that their benefits have been sent elsewhere after their banking account information was changed without their knowledge. VEC pauses payments while investigating potential fraud.

Nationwide, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims last week was 293,000, a decrease of 36,000 from the previous week’s revised level. There were 822,205 initial claims in the comparable week in 2020.