Nearly 150,000 Virginians filed for unemployment last week

Jobless claims in past three weeks are more than twice the number from 2019.

Published April 9, 2020 by Sydney Lake

As the economic fallout from the COVID-19 crisis continues, 147,369 Virginians filed initial claims for unemployment last week, according to a news release Thursday afternoon from the Virginia Employment Commission.

This brings Virginia’s total unemployment claims for the last three weeks to 306,143. It’s more than twice the number of the roughly 135,000 jobless claims filed in all of 2019. 

This is triple the number from the previous week and more than 113,000 in excess of the 20,020 claims from the same week last year. 

Nationally, 6.6 million workers filed for unemployment last week, bringing the total to almost 17 million in just the last few weeks. 

The lodging and food services industries were initially the most affected, but other industries, including manufacturing, transportation and health care, have also been hit, according to VEC.

The worst-hit areas of the state, with more than 2,000 additional people filing for unemployment last week compared to the previous week, are in Northern Virginia, the Richmond region and Hampton Roads

Here are the top 10 localities, listed by number of unemployment claims for the week ending April 4. The previous week’s claims are in parentheses.

• Fairfax County, 21,109 (12,109)
• Prince William County, 9,178  (5,863)
• Virginia Beach, 8,754 (7,386)
• Loudoun County, 7,070 (4,561)
• Chesterfield County, 5,720 (4,219)
• Richmond, 4,740 (4,504)
• Norfolk, 4,190 (3,446)
• Chesapeake, 3,702 (2,919)
• Newport News 3,667 (2,902)

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