Unemployment rate on the rise in Virginia

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — Virginia’s unemployment rate is on the rise. In fact, it’s the highest it’s been since August 2021.  

“It’s a streak that you don’t want to see,” John Provo, Executive Director of Virginia Tech’s Center for Economic and Community Engagement, told 8News. 

Virginia’s unemployment rate has increased steadily to 3.4% in May since January, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Provo said layoffs at manufacturing plants, similar to ones at the Georgia

Pacific plant in Emporia and a Volvo plant in Pulaski County, are partly to blame.

“There was a slow leak, really, that started in certain parts of the state earlier this Spring, and it’s getting a little bit faster,” Provo said.

Provo said a variety of factors, including delayed buyouts, legal challenges and more, make it hard to tell how federal layoffs have affected Virginia’s unemployment rate. However, he said the decisions at the federal level could lead to an even bigger spike later this year.

“You’re going to get to the end of September, and a lot of these fork-of-the-road federal buyouts are going to end,” Provo told 8News. “You’re gonna get to October 1, which is when the federal government starts its new fiscal year, and so there are going to be contracts that may or may not be continued, and then there’s other budgetary issues yet to drop for higher ed and healthcare, which are big employers around the state.”

Provo added that while the state unemployment rate is 3.4%, several rural pockets of the state have even higher rates.