In the latest filing week, the Virginia Employment Commission reports that the number of initial claims essentially remained unchanged from the previous week.
The week ending April 8 had 1,558 initial claims for unemployment, a decrease of five claimants from the week before.
This continues a trend seen in the Commonwealth for more than 12 months. More than half of claims were from administrative and support and waste management, professional, scientific and technical services, retail trade, health care and social assistance.
Continued weeks claimed totaled 11,681, a decrease of 142 claims from the week before but an increase of 68 percent from the same week in 2022.
The largest weekly claim change was 11,388 in California, followed by New Jersey with 3,228 and Pennsylvania’s 2,816. Virginia’s weekly change was the 23 largest in the United States.
Initial claims in the U.S. for the week ending April 8 was 239,000, an increase of 11,000 from the week before, but the highest level of initial claims since January 15, 2022, when 251,000 claimed unemployment for the first time.
Staunton and Waynesboro’s local unemployment rate was 2.6 in February 2023, down from 3 percent in January 2023 and a slight increase from 2.5 percent in February 2022.
Augusta County’s local unemployment rate was 2.5 percent in February 2023, a decrease from 2.9 percent in January 2023, but slightly more than the county’s 2.4 percent in February 2022.
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Rebecca Barnabi
