{"id":597791,"date":"2026-04-21T15:34:40","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T15:34:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/597791\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T15:34:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T15:34:40","slug":"alexandrias-unemployment-rises-nearly-34-year-over-year-in-latest-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/597791\/","title":{"rendered":"Alexandria\u2019s unemployment rises nearly 34% year over year in latest data"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Unemployment among city residents rose by one-third year over year to start 2026, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/virginiaworks.com\/local-area-unemployment-statistics-laus\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">new state data<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>A total of 3,656 Alexandria residents were reported as seeking jobs in January, according to figures released April 16 by the Virginia Department of Workforce Development and Advancement.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s up 33.9% from the 2,731 seeking work in January 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Alexandria\u2019s increase was similar to that of Fairfax County, which saw a 33.8% rise in joblessness year over year.<\/p>\n<p>Increases were higher in Arlington (up 54.7%) and Falls Church (54.9%).<\/p>\n<p>Owing to the higher level of joblessness, the city\u2019s unemployment rate grew from 2.7% in January 2025 to 3.7% in January 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Across Northern Virginia as a whole, the number of unemployed rose 30.9% to 64,087 in January, while the year-over-year unemployment rate increased from 2.8% to 3.7%. Since the start of the second Trump administration in January 2025, the largest number of Northern Virginia residents recorded as unemployed was 65,408 last November.<\/p>\n<p>Across the D.C. metro area, the number of jobless grew 23.8% to 149,568 and the unemployment rate rose from 3.4% to 4.4% over a year. Statewide, the number of unemployed was up 18.7% to 173,934 and the unemployment rate grew from 3.2% to 3.9%.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-79811 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alxnow.com\/files\/2026\/04\/January-2026-Northern-Virginia-employment-data-via-Virginia-Department-of-Workforce-Development-and-Advancement.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"337\"  \/>January 2026 Northern Virginia employment data (via Virginia Department of Workforce Development and Advancement)<\/p>\n<p>State figures were released a day after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bls.gov\/news.release\/metro.nr0.htm\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">federal unemployment data<\/a> for metropolitan areas in January. Monthly reports at both the state and federal levels continue to be delayed owing to the impacts of last year\u2019s seven-week federal government shutdown.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, year-over-year jobless rates grew in 252 of the nation\u2019s 387 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bls.gov\/news.release\/metro.t01.htm\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">metropolitan areas<\/a>, decreased in 101 and were unchanged in 34. The national non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose to 4.7% from 4.4% a year before.<\/p>\n<p>Among all metro areas, Honolulu recorded the lowest jobless rate for the month at 2.1%. The highest rate was reported in El Centro, Calif., at 18.6%. Among the 56 metro areas with populations over one million, Honolulu had the lowest rate and Fresno, Calif., had the highest at 8.8%.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">All January 2026 figures are preliminary and subject to revision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unemployment among city residents rose by one-third year over year to start 2026, according to new state data.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101,14261,9292,134,3],"class_list":["post-597791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-federal-workers","tag-government-shutdown","tag-jobs","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}