When the economy crashed last year, Virginia lost a significant number of jobs.
And the job market still hasn't recovered.
The recession from the early 1990s was long and deep. And then the one from the late 2000s kind of fell off a cliff but the economy recovered much more quickly. Our current predicament, though, really has no precedent.
Jeanette Chapman at the Fuller Institute at George Mason University says job losses in Northern Virginia were nearly four times greater than previous recessions. "Our peak losses occurred after two months. In other recessions, that usually takes 18 months or 35 months to get there," Chapman notes. "And the magnitude of these losses was four times larger than the peak losses in these prior two recessions."
What about the rest of Virginia? John Provo at Virginia Tech says other areas are struggling just as much if not more. "So if you actually go out into some of the rural areas, the percentage loss is smaller in the unemployment rate because number one those are smaller but also less dynamic labor markets where there's less opportunity for folks to actually be looking for work. So later when we have good data on labor-force participation I think we may see some more nuanced stories come out."
The Fuller Institute estimates Virginia has been able to recover about 40 percent of the jobs that were lost a year ago. But that is still a job loss that's about twice as large as the previous two recessions.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
