Virginia’s jobless rate reached its lowest level of 2009 in October, according to data released Wednesday.
The rate was 6.3 percent, down from a revised 6.5 percent in September. The number of jobless workers was down 8,400 to 261,700 in October, as public and private schools and colleges added jobs and there were fewer student job seekers in the labor force, the report from the Virginia Employment Commission said.
October is typically the best employment month for the state because of hiring associated with harvests and schools re-opening from summer break, said Bill Mezger, Chief Economist in the Virginia Employment Commission’s Economic Information Services Division.
Between 2000 and 2006, though, December was slightly better because of retail sector growth, he said.
Virginia’s seasonally-adjusted October rate of 6.6 percent was the seventh-lowest in the country, behind North Dakota [4.2 percent], Nebraska [4.9 percent], South Dakota [5.0 percent], Montana [6.4 percent], Utah [6.5 percent], and Vermont [6.5 percent]. Michigan’s 15.1 percent unemployment rate was the highest.
The state’s unemployment rate peaked in June, with a rate of 7.3 percent and a seasonally-adjusted rate of 7.1 percent.
Though the jobs picture looks marginally better than earlier in the year, employment figures are still much worse compared to a year ago.
Prince William County recently reported 1,484 new jobs through the third quarter in 2009 — compared with nearly 3,000 during the same time period in 2008. And in October 2008, Virginia’s jobless rate was 4.2 percent.
The rate may see a bump in November with many job seekers looking for holiday work, Mezger said. Many older people have also been looking for seasonal jobs that students usually look for, he added.
December’s jobless rate may fall back to October’s range as holiday job seekers are hired, the report said, but Mezger added that it was still too early to tell this year. Holiday hiring in the retail sector had been about 30,000 in the first half of the decade. That figure fell to about 18,000 the past two years because of the recession.
