The Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) announced that the number of initial claims filed from mid-March through the August 15, 2020 filing week totaled 1,104,097 or 27 percent of pre-pandemic, payroll employment, according to figures.
For the filing week ending August 15, the figure for seasonally unadjusted initial claims in Virginia was 15,151. The latest claims figure was an increase of 1,886 claimants from the previous week, reversing some of the declines reported in early August.
For the most recent filing week, continued weeks claimed totaled 265,225, which was essentially unchanged from the previous week but 245,425 higher than the 19,800 continued claims from the comparable week last year. They had trended downward in recent months before leveling off in the most recent filing week. The continued claims total is mainly comprised of those recent initial claimants who continued to file for unemployment insurance benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic.
