Lynchburg leads Virginia in job growth rate

By Bryan Gentry

Published: July 30, 2008

The Lynchburg region and Virginia reached record employment levels in June, with Lynchburg still leading the state in job growth rate, despite a statewide and local increase in the jobless rate.

The Lynchburg area had 111,000 jobs in June, a 2,500 job increase from June 2007. The region had a labor force of 125,000.

The labor force is defined as people who say they are working or looking for a job.

With the number of jobs jumping 2.3 percent within the past year, Lynchburg had the fastest job growth rate of any other region in Virginia tracked by the VEC.

Most of the job growth was in the services area, according to VEC data.

Manufacturing jobs have decreased by 300 in the past year.

Virginia’s June unemployment rate increased 1.1 percentage points from the same time last year, bringing the rate to 4.2 percent — the highest jobless rate for the month since 2003, the Virginia Employment Commission said Wednesday.

Students seeking summer jobs and new graduates entering the labor market helped drive June’s unemployment, which was up from 3.8 percent in May, the commission said in a news release.

The jump in unemployment is typical for June as students get out of school and look for jobs, said William Mezger, chief economist for the Virginia Employment Commission.

“We still … had more people working in Virginia than we’ve ever had before, but we also had a record labor force and we had more people looking for work because of the students coming out,” Mezger said.

The state had about 3.8 million jobs in June, and a prospective labor force of 4.2 million.

- The Associated Press contributed to this report.