The Lynchburg region’s unemployment rate jumped to 8.7 percent in January, higher than it ever was last year or any other time since the early 1980s.
In January 2009, the unemployment rate was 6.9 percent. It rose to 8 percent last summer but fell to 7.2 percent by De-cember.
Joe Turek, dean of the school of business and economics at Lynchburg College, said the jump from December to January is not very disturbing because it could reflect seasonal jobs that ended after the holiday shopping season.
More worrisome are some of the statistics that figure into the jobless rate, he said.
According to Virginia Employment Commission data released Wednesday, the Lynchburg region’s labor force — people who either have jobs or are seeking jobs — declined by 399 people, less than one percent. Some of that drop might result from people voluntarily leaving the workforce, to retire, for example, but it also could represent people who became dis-couraged and stopped looking for jobs.
“In January 2010, you have 8.7 percent of the smaller labor force unemployed,” Turek said. “What’s not being counted is that those (399) workers who left the labor force themselves are also unemployed.”
“To the extent that that 399 (figure) represents discouraged workers, the (8.7 percent) understates the amount of unem-ployment,” he said.
The January data show that about 114,000 Lynchburg-area residents had jobs in January, a decrease of about 2,500 from January 2009.
Each locality in the Lynchburg area had a rise in unemployment, with Appomattox County reaching 10.3 percent unem-ployment.
The region’s unemployment rate remained above the state’s rate of 7.6 percent, and below the nation’s rate of 10.6 per-cent in January.
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