NORFOLK, Va. — The nationwide job crisis is slowing, but it's not over.
More than 40 million Americans have filed for unemployment in the last 10 weeks, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. That includes an estimated 784,000 Virginians who have filed initial claims.
The number of initial claims in the Commonwealth peaked in early April, with close to 150,000 people filing in a single week.
Since then, claims have declined slowly until the most recent reported week, according to DOL data.
Virginia reports a week-to-week increase in claims from 44,699 between May 10 and May 16, to about 58,591 between May 17 and May 23.
It's the largest increase of weekly claims over this stretch of any state, as most states continue to report a decrease in filers.
“The impact of COVID-19 is pretty much spread all across the Commonwealth," said Ellen Marie Hess, Commissioner of the Virginia Employment Commission to the Virginia Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee.
With close to 800,000 claims in 10 weeks, that means the Virginia Employment Commission is paying out billions of dollars in benefits to help workers through the job crisis.
According to a VEC presentation on May 19, the agency has paid unemployed workers more than $2 billion in benefits since March 15. About a quarter of that sum is from state unemployment funds and the rest comes from the federal CARES Act and the expansion of unemployment benefits.
Plus, VEC says it will take at least another month to provide extensions of benefits to thousands of workers. So, the state agency still isn’t paying benefits to everyone who is eligible.
“Those people that their benefits ran out just as all of this was happening, it’s sad," said Nicole Martin, an unemployed worker waiting on a benefit extension.
At the current rate, more than a million Virginians could file for unemployment by July.
RELATED: Unemployed contractors, self-employed Virginians can now file weekly claims through Gov2Go app