Unemployment claims in Northern Virginia rose 7.1% between January and February, new data shows — offering a first glimpse of the impacts of mass federal layoffs.
A total of 53,394 people in the region were counted as unemployed and looking for work in February as sweeping job cuts began going into effect.
That’s 3,561 more people than the month before. It’s also an 18.6% increase from that time a year ago, according to preliminary figures that the Bureau of Labor Statistics released yesterday.
Overall, the region reported an unemployment rate of 3% in January, up from 2.8% a month before and 2.6% in February 2024.
These figures come from BLS’s Alexandria-Arlington-Reston corridor, which includes much of Northern Virginia and a small portion of the West Virginia panhandle.
In the D.C. metro area as a whole, 120,854 people were reported as unemployed in February — an increase of 8.4% month over month and 14.5% year over year.
February’s city/county unemployment data has yet to be reported. It will come from the Virginia Employment Commission.
The BLS figures came out several hours before regional leaders gathered to discuss ways to blunt the impacts of President Donald Trump’s evisceration of many federal agencies with offices in Northern Virginia.
The current effort marks a shift in a region where jurisdictions often have competed, rather than collaborated, to achieve economic-development objectives. Given the circumstances, “we have to figure out how we’re going to play nice in the sandbox,” said Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) chair Rodney Lusk.
Lusk, a Fairfax County supervisor, led yesterday’s COG meeting, which spent most of its time focused on economic issues.
Richard Madaleno, a COG alternate board member and the chief administrative officer of Montgomery County, echoed that message of collaboration. Madaleno proposed an economic-development “non-aggression pact” among the 24 localities that comprise the Council of Governments.
Those jurisdictions fighting among themselves will only hurt the region as a whole, he said.
“I don’t think it helps any of us at this particular moment,” Madaleno said.
Federal workforce cuts and questions about the broader economy “are going to be long-term, fundamental and challenging,” said Mark Carrier, board chair of the Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce.
Carrier is an executive with BF Saul Co. Hospitality Group, which owns and operates hotels and has seen the impact of recent events unfold.
“Hotel revenues in our region are starting to feel the impact,” he said. “We’re highly sensitive to demand change.”
Shawn Townsend, president/CEO of the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington, said the hospitality picture is grim.
“I haven’t seen so much doom and gloom [before],” he said, pointing to data showing nearly half of DC diners are eating out less.
A survey conducted by the organization reported that 11% of restaurant owners in DC’s full-service, casual-dining sector said they were “very likely” to close in 2025.
While that is in line with pre-pandemic norms that saw 10% to 12% of restaurants nationally shutter annually, the survey found another 33% of respondents saying they were “somewhat likely” to close their doors.
“The margins are super-thin,” Townsend said of the industry’s profitability.
Fairfax County Supervisor James Walkinshaw, who serves on the COG board, pressed business leaders to put pressure on Gov. Glenn Youngkin to talk to President Trump and convince him to slow down the downsizing efforts.
“This is a president who can be swayed by the last person who walks into the Oval Office,” Walkinshaw said.
Arlington is among the localities most exposed to federal-government downsizing. According to county officials, a total of 28,000 county residents are employed in the federal workforce, while Arlington is home to 25,000 federal jobs.
At the COG meeting, Lusk endorsed a proposal to create an economic-development district across the region. Clark Mercer, the organization’s executive director, said staff currently are in the fact-gathering stage before presenting a fleshed-out proposal describing what the would entail.
In the meantime, local leaders continue to work at “getting our hands around this,” Carrier said of the ever-fluctuating economic situation.
“We’re in the triage phase,” he said.
County’s projected jobs growth reduced
Arlington County Board members on April 9 were briefed on new projections suggesting the growth of jobs in the county will not be as robust as once expected.
The demographic briefing now pegs the number of jobs in the county at 266,100 by 2050. Figures in the 2025 report reflect information compiled in the summer of 2024, before recent federal-downsizing efforts began.
Though up from 221,600 in 2020, this is lower than the projected 2050 figure of 283,700 in a county study from 2022.
The decline in the total number of jobs represents the “most significant change” in data from three years ago, said Nicole Boling, an associate planner and demographer from the Department of Community Planning, Housing and Development.
