Virginia's labor force participation rate is now higher than it was before the pandemic.
When the pandemic hit, so many people left the labor force that some analysts were worried it would never be the same. Now it seems, those fears did not pan out. Leslie Stratton at Virginia Commonwealth University says Virginia is outperforming the rest of the country.
"The labor force participation rate in Virginia is about one full percentage point above what it was just before the pandemic hit," says Stratton. "And the labor force participation rate in the United States is still about half a percentage point below where it was just before the pandemic hit."
John Provo at Virginia Tech says those numbers are not uniform across the Commonwealth. He says northern Virginia has the highest labor force participation while pockets of southside and southwest have the lowest.
"There are a lot of communities who we typically think of as economically challenged like Danville, Pittsylvania, Martinsville, Henry, Bristol, Petersburg [and] Portsmouth who are all actually coming in above the state average," Provo says. "But, there's still a really big spread when you've got pockets that are well below 50%."
Those pockets could benefit from efforts to help people with substance abuse disorder, he says, in addition to the governor's proposed investments in childcare.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
