Virginia's unemployment rate has been steadily increasing for the last five months. That's the first time Virginia has seen rising unemployment numbers for that long since the Great Recession almost 20 years ago. John Provo at Virginia Tech says some of that is tied to manufacturing losses in rural areas.
"Layoffs at Volvo Trucks in Pulaski, a closure of Georgia Pacific lumber supply facility in Emporia, and there are a couple of others," Provo says. "But I think these are companies that are anticipating a slowdown, and they’re tied to consumer markets ultimately."
Terry Clower at George Mason University says we know the unemployment rate is partly tied to mass firings and termination of contracts in Washington. But, he also says we don't know what we don't know.
"The folks that were rather summarily dismissed for supposedly performance reasons that were probationary workers, many of those had their terminations put on hold as the cases are adjudicated," Clower says. "And then the second is the unknown number of people who are taking the voluntary separation package, the fork in the road people if you want to think of it that way."
Virginia's unemployment rate is currently at 3.4%; that’s the highest it's been since August 2021.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
