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The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Friday reported that the unemployment rate in Virginia rose again in June, to 3.5 percent. The BLS report notes that “Virginia had the only rate increase” in the month of June. This was the sixth consecutive increase in Virginia’s unemployment rate, the first time the Commonwealth’s unemployment has continuously risen over half a year since the Great Recession job losses of 2008-2009.
Virginia’s rising unemployment rate comes amid the current Administration’s purges of thousands of federal workers and contractors across the Commonwealth, many of which are not captured in this data because they will not take effect until subsequent months. CNBC just downgraded Virginia in its annual “Top State for Business” rankings to the lowest point in nearly a decade, specifically citing “federal job cuts.” Recent mass firings by the Trump Administration are likely to substantially increase these cuts even further in coming months.
The rising unemployment rate in Virginia may also be an early indicator of broader damage to the Commonwealth’s economy which Virginia-based forecasters warn could be severe. Yet despite these warnings and increasingly threatening strains on local governments, Governor Youngkin and Lieutenant Governor Earle-Sears have so far continued to support the Trump Administration’s mass layoffs and broader cuts to the federal government’s footprint in Virginia.
Congressman Don Beyer (D-Va.), and a resident of Alexandria who serves as the top House Democrat on the Congressional Joint Economic Committee, said:
“With six monthly unemployment increases in a row and the only June increase in America, this can no longer be waived away: Virginia’s unemployment rate is clearly rising in a sustained way, and it is a certainty that this increase is being driven by the Trump Administration’s policies. Trump’s mass firings and cuts are draining Virginia’s economy, while also hurting the services Virginians depend on, and many of those cuts are not even showing up in the data yet. I fear it will only get worse as the number of workers purged rises and the economic damage spreads further to other sectors of our economy.
“Governor Youngkin took office in 2022 at a time of historic job growth in Virginia, with an unemployment rate of 2.7 percent the day he was sworn in. Youngkin and Sears are presiding over a worrying increase in Virginia unemployment, but rather than stand up and fight for Virginians, they are cheering it on for purely political reasons. It’s hard to imagine a worse indictment of their leadership, and Virginians deserve better.”
Historical economic data, including unemployment rates for states including Virginia, is tracked by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED).
