Virginia Unemployment Rate Jumps for Three Conscutive Months, Adding Over 27,000 Unemployed this October

By Czarina Ara

Nov 22, 2016 09:09 AM EST

In a data released by Virginia's government on the morning of Friday, it was revealed that for its third consecutive month, the state's number of unemployed has added a massive 27,000 job seekers during the month of October alone.

According to economists, the growing number of unemployed in Virginia is not because of the lack of employment of the part of the companies but rather a result of the large number of workers currently employed in the industry. For the record, the labor market of Virginia has actually been falling for the past few years which results to the consistent increase in the percentage of job hunters in the state.

Based on the data, Virginia has added the most number of unemployed in the month of October with 27,000 additional job hunters, making it the biggest increase in labor pool since 1976 when the survey was first conducted. For the record, before the October statistics was released, the largest rise in jobless citizens of Virginia was 15,000.

Andy Bauer, Regional Economist of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, said that despite the fact the many people engage themselves in the labor market to search for suitable jobs, there are also other people who enter into the labor market but not looking for jobs. This, according to Bauer, causes a huge impact in the rising percentage of unemployed in the state.

In the month of July, economists question to whether or not the state achieved a successful employment as Virginia's rate of unemployment dropped to an alarming percentage of 3.7. However, despite these figures, Virginia has still managed to increase job offerings with a 2 percent increase compared to its recorded rate on 2016.

Bauer also confirmed that they several businesses suggest the upsurge in the wage of workers to be able to entice and maintain personnel for long-time employment as the increase in salaries effect the rate of unemployment in every state.

Meanwhile, the rate of unemployment in the District and in Maryland during the month of October remains the same with 4.2 and 6.1 percent, correspondingly.