The Virginian-Pilot
©
Hampton Roads retailers added 1,100 employees in December, but their seasonal hiring wasn't enough to offset job cuts in the region's construction and leisure-and-hospitality sectors.
In the region and statewide, "we didn't get nearly the boost from holiday hiring that we normally get," said William Mezger, chief economist in the Virginia Employment Commission's Economic Information Services division.
Hampton Roads' jobless rate climbed to 5.3 percent last month from 4.8 percent in November, the commission reported Thursday. The latest rate is up from 3.5 percent in December 2007.
Meanwhile, the number of local residents out of work jumped almost 10 percent between November and December to 44,440, the Employment Commission said.
In contrast to much of Virginia, Hampton Roads had been adding jobs through November. However, the growth came to a halt in December, when the region lost 1,400 jobs, Mezger said. A major source of those losses, he said, was tourism-dependent Williamsburg, where the city's unemployment rate for December climbed to 12.5 percent, more than double its year-earlier rate.
The number of Hampton Roads residents filing first-time jobless claims jumped last month to 7,745 from 4,834 in November, according to the commission. That was almost twice the 4,005 claims in December 2007.
Statewide, the unemployment rate rose to 5.2 percent from 4.6 percent in November, partly because of business closings and factories that extended their year-end furloughs to reduce inventories, Mezger said.
"It's obvious that the recession finally hit Virginia," and a rebound in hiring isn't likely to materialize until at least the third quarter, he said.
The Richmond area has been hit by heavy job cuts at failed electronics retailer Circuit City Stores, title insurer Land-America Financial Group and a computer-chip manufacturing plant, and more losses are likely, Mezger said. Meanwhile, vehicle-parts suppliers in Virginia have been hurt by major cutbacks at the Volvo truck-assembly plant in Dublin, southwest of Roanoke, he said.
Nationwide, the jobless rate rose to 7.1 percent last month from 6.5 percent in November. In December 2007, the rate was 4.8 percent.
Tom Shean, (757) 446-2379, tom.shean@pilotonline.com
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
Twitter
Google
Yahoo
Not bad compared to other areas
The 4th quarter data puts this area in the 0-5% decrease zone. The worst areas are hitting 25%+ decreases. It's mostly CA and FL. Even this labor report doesn't show much of an issue here as the losses were concentrated in the tourist industry which is dependent on people in other areas having the money to travel.
The doubling in prices has been about a decade long which is faster than normal and above inflation but not ridiculously above the long term trend like these other places. It will settle back down to the long term trend over time.
Sorry EvanJ, Hampton Roads
Sorry EvanJ, Hampton Roads is very bubbly when it comes to real estate. Virginia beach jumped over 100% in a few short years. Pilot and Link was full of advertisements from Mortgage Brokers for all the bad types of loans (at one point, every mortgage broker with an advertisement on the realty section of Pilot Online had subprime lending in them). There will be pain. The "It's different here" mantra does not work.
Why?
This area has always been lower than the national average, and there's no data to indicate that will change. We didn't see anywhere near the ridiculous real estate boom as other areas, so there won't be nearly as much drop in the adjustment.
Heading Up Each Month
Looks like this number is creeping on up for this area. Unfortunately, I think we will see at least 7% unemployment rate in VA. and much worse for the national average before it is said and done.