Unemployment is up in Richmond, Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia. That's according to the latest numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Terry Clower at George Mason University says some of the inflated numbers in Northern Virginia are people who lost their jobs at the beginning of the second Trump administration.
"Some of the folks that may have stopped working because they either took voluntary separation or were terminated from federal government or other contractors and things like that last year," Clower says. "Maybe they got some severance pay or, you know, whatever the case may be, and they're just now entering, actually starting to look for work."
John Provo at Virginia Tech says the loss of those federal jobs in Northern Virginia is offset in part by new manufacturing jobs in other parts of the Commonwealth, like the new steel plant in Bland County.
"We've got great companies making announcements in Virginia for biopharma, for defense-related manufacturing, and other things," According to Provo. "But the larger economic environment is clearly leading companies to either slow down or let people go."
He says he'll be watching Virginia's employment and labor markets to see if these large companies hire enough workers to shift the numbers.
