Virginia labor market remained tight at end of 2022: State lost 64K jobs in November

Despite record growth in early 2022, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports today that November saw a large drop in job openings.

Virginia lost 64,000 jobs in November 2022, according to the BLS’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), which reflects the largest monthly decrease in job openings in the history of the series dating back to 2001.

With data including job openings, hires, layoffs, voluntary quits and other job separations, such as retirements and deaths, JOLTS reveals the overall change in payroll employment.

In November in Virginia, job openings fell from 356,000 to 292,000, the second-largest decrease in the United States behind Texas. Job openings across the country changed little at 10.5 million. The Commonwealth’s job openings rate fell by 1.3 percentage points to 6.7 percent from October’s revised 8 percent, the largest drop in the country. The country’s rate remained unchanged at 6.4 percent, 0.9 of a percentage point lower than its peak in March 2022.

Less than one worker was unemployed per two job openings in Virginia, the situation in the Commonwealth for most of last year, and the lowest rates since BLS began collecting data in January 2001. The unemployed per job opening ratio peaked at 4.4 in February 2010, during the Great Recession, but the number of unemployed workers per job opening was 3.3 in April 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Number of hires in Virginia rose by 4,000 to 168,000 in November, 2.4 percent higher from the month before and more than 6 percent more than in November 2021.

Virginia ended 2022 with tight labor conditions, 20 percent less job openings than a peak in March 2022 and 20 percent less quits than a peak in December 2021.