The employment situation in Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley is looking a bit better. The situation nationally – not so much.
The national unemployment rate inched up from 9.7 percent in August to 9.8 percent in September, according to a report released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The most recent unemployment figures for Virginia were released earlier this week by the Virginia Employment Commission for the month of August. The latest VEC data had the unemployment rate in Virginia at 6.5 percent.
Inside the national data:
– Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has increased by 7.6 million to 15.1 million, and the unemployment rate has doubled to 9.8 percent.
– The number of job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs rose by 603,000 to 10.4 million in September. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) rose by 450,000 to 5.4 million. In September, 35.6 percent of unemployed persons were jobless for 27 weeks or more.
– The civilian labor force participation rate declined by 0.3 percentage point in September to 65.2 percent. The employment-population ratio, at 58.8 percent, also declined over the month and has decreased by 3.9 percentage points since the recession began in December 2007.
– In September, the number of persons working part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was little changed at 9.2 million. The number of such workers rose
sharply throughout most of the fall and winter but has been little changed since March.
– About 2.2 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force in September, an increase of 615,000 from a year earlier. These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the four weeks preceding the survey.
– Among the marginally attached, there were 706,000 discouraged workers in September, up by 239,000 from a year earlier. Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. The other 1.5 million persons marginally attached to the labor force in September had not searched for work in the four weeks preceding the survey for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities.
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