Virginia’s Latest Unemployment Insurance Weekly Initial Claims at 2,230

RICHMOND— Virginia Works announced today that 2,230 unemployment insurance weekly initial claims were filed during the week ending December 21, 2024, which is 7.7 percent lower than last week’s 2,417 claims and 10.5 percent higher than the comparable week of last year (2,019).  Nearly 78 percent of claimants self-reported an associated industry; of those reported, the top five industries (64 percent) were Accommodation and Food Services (343); Administrative and Support and Waste Management (195); Construction (194); Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services (194); and Manufacturing (180).

Continued weeks claims (16,104) were 2.9 percent higher than last week (15,657) and were 30.5 percent higher than the comparable week of last year (12,341). Nearly 92 percent of claimants self-reported an associated industry; of those reported, the top five industries (58 percent) were Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services (2,497); Administrative and Support and Waste Management (2,106); Health Care and Social Assistance (1,458); Manufacturing (1,351); and Retail Trade (1,248).

Significant Layoffs and Announcements are available at the following websites:

WARN Notices | Virginia Employment Commission

Announcements | Virginia Economic Development Partnership

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 21, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 219,000, a decrease of 1,000 from the previous week’s unrevised level of 220,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 274,734 in the week ending December 21, an increase of 22,663 (or 9.0 percent) from the previous week. The seasonal factors had expected an increase of 23,556 (or 9.3 percent) from the previous week. There were 274,840 initial claims in the comparable week in 2023. 

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