Will changes in Washington cause more people to leave Virginia than arrive?
Outmigration is when more people leave Virginia than move here, and it may be on the horizon if the new administration in Washington continues to slash the federal workforce and dramatically downsize government.
"People might decide to leave Virginia to look for jobs elsewhere, for example. There might be some form of brain drain," says Eric Scorsone, executive director of the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia. "So, there are some definite things we've seen in other parts of the country when the Midwest economy slowed down a lot, people started moving to Texas, for example. So, one potential negative implication would be outmigration from the state."
Demographics researcher Hamilton Lombard says Virginia only recently turned the corner and started adding more people than it lost.
"Last year, we got back to having more people coming into Virginia than going out," Lombard explains. "But it wasn't driven by Northern Virginia; Northern Virginia saw a very small recovery, still a lot of outmigration. What drove it was a lot more people into places like Martinsville, Bristol and the Northern Neck, fewer people leaving the coalfield area. So, basically more balanced growth in Virginia."
Now, that trend of balanced growth might be changing. The prediction from Weldon Cooper Center is that Virginia could lose 30,000 jobs as a result of the downsizing in Washington.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
