Nonfarm Employment in Virginia

Virginia Works (Department of Workforce Development and Advancement) today announced that Virginia’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in January remained unchanged at 3.0 percent, which is 0.1 percentage point below the rate from a year ago. According to household survey data in January, the number of employed residents increased by 8,212 to 4,448,520 and the number of unemployed residents increased by 346 to 139,731. The labor force increased by 8,558 to 4,588,251. Virginia’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is 0.7 percentage points below the national rate, which remained unchanged at 3.7 percent.

The Commonwealth’s labor force participation rate increased by 0.1 percentage points to 66.6 percent in January. The labor force participation rate measures the proportion of the civilian population age 16 and older that is employed or actively looking for work.

In January, Virginia’s nonagricultural employment, from the monthly establishment survey increased by 8,700 to 4,200,000. December’s preliminary estimate of employment, after revision, increased by 34,300 to 4,191,300. In January, private sector employment increased by 4,200 to 3,458,500 while government employment increased by 4,500 to 741,500. Within that sector, federal government jobs increased by 700 to 190,500, state government employment increased by 3,700 to 157,400, and local government increased by 100 to 393,600 over the month. Seasonally adjusted total nonfarm employment data is produced for eleven industry sectors. In January, six experienced over-the-month job gains, one remained unchanged, and four experienced a decline. The largest job gain occurred in Professional and Business Services (+5,100) to 807,900. The second largest job gain occurred in Government (+4,500) to 741,500. The third largest job gain occurred in Financial Activities (+1,400) to 224,000. The other gains were in Manufacturing (+1,100) to 248,600; Education and Health Services (+500) to 594,600; and Mining and Logging (+100) to 7,300.