The latest unemployment numbers are showing where Virginia's economy might be headed.
New unemployment claims are up eight percent compared to last week, and they’re up nine percent compared to this time last year. That year-to-year comparison has been pretty consistent for the last several weeks. So far, the numbers are not showing the kind of Trump effect in Northern Virginia that many people are anticipating, at least not yet.
"We're talking about hundreds of jobs in a slow leak kind of way," says John Provo at Virginia Tech. "We've had a couple of large, public announcements from manufacturers, and I think that's different from the focus we've had on the federal workforce. That's anticipating a broader economic slowdown."
That slow leak may soon become a flood of lost jobs and unemployment claims, especially for Northern Virginia and other places that have large numbers of federal employees, says Terry Clower at George Mason University.
"It is not just where we were expecting this to happen, in particular concentrated in Northern Virginia," Clower says. "But I promise you those numbers are coming."
Those numbers are coming, he says, after all the court challenges have been resolved and after all the voluntary buyout packages have been finalized.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
