Virginia’s Latest Unemployment Insurance Weekly Initial Claims Up at 2,606; Continued Claims at 17,201

RICHMOND— Virginia Works announced today that 2,606 unemployment insurance weekly initial claims were filed during the week ending February 01, 2025, which is 3.3 percent higher than last week’s 2,522 claims and 2.8 percent higher than the comparable week of last year (2,536). Nearly 80 percent of claimants self-reported an associated industry; of those reported, the top five industries (60 percent) were Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services (324); Administrative and Support and Waste Management (252); Health Care and Social Assistance (244); Retail Trade (189); and Construction (169).

Continued weeks claims
(17,201) were virtually unchanged since last week (17,203) and were 14.8 percent higher than the comparable week of last year (14,987). Nearly 92 percent of claimants self-reported an associated industry; of those reported, the top five industries (57 percent) were Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services (2,418); Administrative and Support and Waste Management (2,124); Construction (1,625); Health Care and Social Assistance (1,433); and Manufacturing (1,389).

Significant Layoffs and Announcements are available at the following websites:

WARN Notices | Virginia Works

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 February 1, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 219,000, an increase of 11,000 from the previous week’s revised level. The previous week’s level was revised up by 1,000 from 207,000 to 208,000. The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 239,690 in the week ending February 1, an increase of 11,370 (or 5.0 percent) from the previous week. The seasonal factors had expected a decrease of 208 (or 0.1 percent) from the previous week. There were 234,729 initial claims in the comparable week in 2024.

All States Initial Weeks Claimed