The economic crisis is hitting some parts of Virginia harder than others.
While some parts of Virginia have seen employment declines between 6% and 8%, Lynchburg has seen employment decline by 9.3%. And the Shenandoah Valley has seen employment decline by 9.8%.
Terry Clower at George Mason University says those losses are tied to their local economies.
"So those communities that are particularly sensitive to attracting other people from outside the region to come in for holiday weekends or things like that," Clower explains. "Other areas that may be impacted have been, for example, a college town where many of the local businesses derive their income directly from the presence of students."
John Provo at Virginia Tech says these numbers tell only part of the story.
"Some of our most historically-distressed areas were actually showing lower numbers, because they’ve already shed a lot of those jobs early on," he says. "So in some respects Lynchburg and the northern Shenandoah Valley may simply just be taking losses now that other regions had taken earlier."
Southside Virginia has the smallest decline in employment. Numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show this area had a 6% decline in employment from February to September.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
