2018 has been a great year for the Virginia economy as the Commonwealth became one of the best-performing states in the country, seeing significant gains in employment numbers and gross domestic product (GDP). The news follows the release of the in-depth “State of the Commonwealth” report that said, forecasting for 2019, Virginia “will be at or above the U.S. rate of growth.”
Over the past 12 months, Virginia has increased its employment numbers by 75,100 non-farm positions. Over four million people are now employed across the state, up from 3.9 million in November 2017 – an increase in employment of 1.9 percent. In a report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) analyzing year-over-year net changes in employment in all states, Virginia was one of just a dozen states that saw over 69,000 jobs created over the course of the past year.
Virginia’s unemployment rate also ticked down from 2.9 percent in October to 2.8 percent in November – the lowest since April 2001 – leading to a 0.8 percent drop over the past 12 months. Even though agriculture and farming is one of the state’s number one private industries, the data used by the bureau included non-farm jobs only, with the Commonwealth still remaining one of eight states in the nation with an unemployment rate under three percent.
With the expanding workforce, the sector that saw the largest amount of growth was in manufacturing with a year-over-year gain of 4.4 percent.
Virginia’s GDP has also been growing steadily for five consecutive fiscal quarters, leading to 4.2 percent in the second quarter of 2018, which was boosted by the Republican-led federal tax overhaul signed into law in December of 2017. Some forecasting reports show that Virginia’s economy will grow at about 2.6 or 2.7 percent next year – most likely on par or even above national growth.
The 2018 “State of the Commonwealth” report says that although the recession hit Virginia very hard, “for the first time this decade, Virginia is poised to grow robustly for two (if not more) consecutive years,” concluding that “not only is Virginia back, but that it is back with a vengeance.”