The Youngkin administration is claiming that the state’s unemployment rate increased only a smidge in February, to 3.1 percent, which is a bit of fun with numbers on the part of the MAGAs, with tens of thousands of federal government layoffs still obviously not on the books yet in those numbers.
“Virginia’s economy remains strong with more than $100 billion in capital investment committed by companies growing in Virginia, 259,000 open jobs across the Commonwealth, and our ongoing workforce development initiatives connecting skilled workers to in-demand industries,” Youngkin said in a taxpayer-funded, reality-ignoring press release.
ICYMI
- Virginia home sales down in February: ‘Uncertainty in the market’
Among the problems here: the “open jobs” don’t match the skills of the people who are about to start counting toward our unemployment rate, the open jobs largely being in low-wage sectors, and then you have to take into account geography – the bulk of those being pushed out of the federal government workforce live in Northern Virginia, and aren’t going to be able to just easily pick up and move to take open positions in other parts of the state.
Don’t fear, though, because Youngkin and his handpicked successor, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, are on it – well, maybe not so much Earle-Sears, who suddenly finds herself in a tight race for the Republican nomination for governor in the 2025 cycle…