New numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show a puzzling trend in Virginia's economy.
So, here's a head-scratcher for labor economists: productivity is down in Virginia, but the number of hours worked has gone up. That's according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which compared 2021 to 2022.
John Provo at Virginia Tech suspects what we’re seeing here is some distortion based on coming out of the pandemic.
"Post-COVID, we've had a lot of job churn, a lot of turnover as folks retire, as folks try to play arbitrage in the labor market to see raises and stuff," Provo explains. "That's really something that creates a learning curve for new employees. So that's something that should show up in the productivity stats."
That labor market might actually be the cause of the disparity between productivity and the number of hours worked, according to Maurice Kugler at George Mason University.
"I think it might be related to the tightness of the labor market, that it's so hard to get new workers that they don't want to release them or to decrease their hours in fear of losing those workers," Kugler says.
He says he expects this to be a temporary trend, and that the number of hours worked should eventually track in tandem with productivity in the future.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
