Joblessness in Hampton Roads rises to 6.9% in December

Seasonal hiring for the holidays failed to offset job losses from furloughs and business closings in December, driving up jobless rates for Hampton Roads and the state, the Virginia Employment Commission said Friday.

The ranks of Hampton Roads’ unemployed grew by more than 2,400, while the jobless rate climbed to 6.9 percent from 6.6 percent in November, the VEC said.  Throughout Virginia, seasonal hiring last month was greater than in December 2008, but it didn’t match the traditional pace of holiday-related expansion, said Ann D. Lang , senior economist with the VEC’s economic information services division.  

Hampton Roads’ retailers added 1,200 jobs between November and December, but retail employment was still down by 2,000 from a year earlier, the VEC reported.   

The rise in Hampton Roads’ jobless rate wasn’t a surprise because employers remain cautious about adding workers, said Vinod Agar­wal, an Old Dominion University economics professor and member of ODU’s Economic Forecasting Project. Many businesses, including retailers, would rather pay existing employees overtime for needed work than hire additional workers, he said.

The region’s jobless rate probably will climb for three or four more months until employers feel sufficiently confident to step up their hiring, Agarwal said. One sector in Hampton Roads that continued to expand last month was educational and health services, which added 700 jobs, Lang said. Employment in that sector grew by 2,100 from a year earlier.

The greatest job losses in the region last month occurred in leisure and hospitality, where the number fell 1,400 to 82,300. However, that still exceeded the December 2008 total by 400.

The number of Hampton Roads residents out of work last month climbed to 56,870, compared with 44,130 a year earlier when the region’s jobless rate was 5.4 percent. 

Statewide, unemployment rose to 6.7 percent from 6.4 percent in November. Rates climbed in all 10 of Virginia’s metro areas, and 24 localities – mostly along the Virginia-North Carolina state line – had jobless rates of 10 percent or higher.

Unemployment nationwide rose last month to 9.7 percent from 9.4 percent in November.

Tom Shean, (757) 446-2379, tom.shean@pilotonline.com