Alexandria Initial Unemployment Claims Are Going Down

Initial claims for unemployment continue to fall in Alexandria, but the number of increased claims increased slightly over last week, according to the Virginia Employment Commission.

For the week ending October 10, the city had 2,891 continued claims, a slight increase over last week, which saw 2,885 continued claims. There were also 3,282 continued claims for the week ending Sept. 26, 3,053 claims for the week ending Sept. 19 and 4,036 continued claims for the week ending Sept. 12.

The week ending October 10 is the 30th week since the pandemic began in Virginia. Unemployment has gone down significantly since the spring and summer.

There were 132 initial claims for the week ending October 10, which is a decrease of 11 claims over the previous week. Alexandria is one of 103 localities that saw a decrease or no change in the number of initial claims during that period. There were also 107 initial claims for the week ending Sept. 26; 125 initial claims for the week ending Sept. 19; 120 initial claims for the week ending Sept. 12 and 155 initial claims for the week ending Sept. 5.

Fairfax County had the most initial unemployment claims in Virginia this week with 628 initial filings, and had 17,005 continued claims for the week ending October 10.

Statewide, there were 9,110 initial claims for the week ending October 10, which is down 16% compared to the previous week.

According to VEC:

For the filing week ending October 10, the figure for seasonally unadjusted initial claims in Virginia was 9,110. The latest claims figure was a decrease of 1,733 claimants from the previous week and continued the overall trend of lower claims volumes seen in recent months following April’s peak.

For the most recent filing week, continued weeks claimed totaled 142,220, which was an 11.5% decrease from the previous week, but 125,354 higher than the 16,866 continued claims from the comparable week last year. This drop indicated an acceleration of its recent declining trend. 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.