The Charlottesville metropolitan area lost 500 jobs during a one-year period from September 2007 to September 2008, according to data released Thursday by the Virginia Employment Commission.
Despite the rise in unemployment, “the Charlottesville area still doesn’t do that bad in terms of the national area,” said William Mezger, chief economist of the Virginia Employment Commission. Charlottesville has the 19th lowest unemployment rate of metropolitan areas across the United States and the second lowest rate in the state, behind Northern Virginia.
In September 2008, Charlottesville had a 3.4-percent unemployment rate with 3,610 people unemployed, compared to a 2.3-percent rate with 2,440 people unemployed in September 2007.
The University, including the Health System, account for about a fifth of the jobs in the Charlottesville region, Mezger said. The net loss in jobs “may be just due to the fact that the University and the things that go along with it [are] still in a state of flux in September,” as they transition from summer to fall, Mezger said, because the University does not usually reach full employment levels until November.
Though many areas nationwide showed declines in employment from September to September, Mezger noted the commonwealth as a whole has seen better-than-average job growth.
“Virginia as a whole ... showed a half a percent job growth, September over September,” he said, while “the United States as a whole showed a job loss of a half a percent.”
Though figures are not finalized for October, Mezger said they appear similar to those from September.
“The general trend for most areas right now would probably be for job loss, although not a lot of job loss has shown up in Virginia,” he said. “I think the fact that some job loss showed up in the Charlottesville is probably just a fluke in this area.” He described 500 jobs as “a very minimal job loss.”
The Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce releases its own job report every year that examines average annual employment, accounting for season fluctuations, said Timothy Hulbert, president of the body. The most recent data is from 2007, and it “[shows] growth over the previous year although the growth slowed from the previous two years,” Hulbert said. “2007 was the fourth consecutive year of overall job growth in greater Charlottesville.”
The numbers indicate, though, that job growth began to slow in the final months of 2007 along with the national and global economies, Hulbert said. The Virginia Employment Commission’s findings “[confirm] that job growth continued to slow in 2008 and definitely has declined,” he said. “We know that unemployment has risen in Charlottesville.”
Hulbert described Charlottesville as insulated from large economic swings, experiencing neither large booms nor busts. As a large, stable employer, the University serves as a moderating impact on the regional economy.
“That said, while we’re insulated, we’re not inoculated,” Hulbert added. “We still can feel the effects of a national economic slide.”
Total retail sales are usually about $2.3 billion a year in the area, Hulbert said, but for the first nine months of 2008, retail sales have fallen by 4 percent.
“If you [maintained] that over the course of a year, that would mean that about $100 million worth of retail activity would not occur,” he said. “One hundred million dollars’ worth of retail activity [is] pretty significant.”
Falling retail sales result in lower tax revenues, and “that’s a significant impact,” Hulbert said.
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