The Charlottesville metropolitan area, long renowned for its low rates of unemployment, has seen the rate double in the past year. The Virginia Employment Commission pegs Charlottesville’s unemployment rate at 5.6 percent in February 2009, up from 2.8 percent in February 2008 and 5.3 percent in January 2009.
Still, that’s better than the Commonwealth as a whole. Virginia’s unemployment rate for February 2009 increased to 7 percent compared to 6.4 percent the month before, according to the VEC. The total number of unemployed was 291,100, up 27,000 from January. Virginia’s rate is still below the national number of 8.9 percent.
Though it has the dubious distinction of having the highest unemployment rate, Danville is the only metro area that saw improvement in the unemployment numbers, dropping to 12.3 percent in February from 13.9 in January.
The lowest unemployment rate belongs to Northern Virginia, with 5.2 percent. Albemarle County’s rate is among the lowest of any locality, at 4.9 percent.
Here’s the breakdown:
Blacksburg-Christiansburg-Radford: 8 percent
Charlottesville: 5.6 percent
Danville: 12.3 percent
Harrisonburg: 6.6 percent
Lynchburg: 7.5 percent
Northern Virginia: 5.2 percent
Richmond: 7.9 percent
Roanoke: 7.4 percent
Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News: 7.2 percent
Winchester: 9.2 percent.