The new influx of job seekers increased figures slightly in Virginia during June.
July 23, 2004
Student job seekers boosted Virginia's unemployment rate to 3.8 percent in June, from 3.5 percent in May, but the state still had its best June in three years.
Hampton Roads also saw its unemployment rate jump a half- percentage point, to 4.5 percent, for the month.
Temporarily unemployed school workers, including cafeteria workers and bus drivers, also contributed to the slight increases, said Bill Mezger, chief economist with the Virginia Employment Commission.
"In a lot of counties, the school system is the single biggest employer," Mezger said.
Virginia has fared better than the rest of the country, which had an unseasonally adjusted unemployment rate in June of 5.8 percent.
State officials announced this week that the number of jobs in Virginia rose to a record 3,617,600 in June, breaking the previous record that was set in December 2000.
Hampton Roads was second to Northern Virginia in adding jobs, Mezger said.
He expects to see more statewide records broken in job growth and shrinking unemployment when schools start again in the fall, he said.
"We're probably better off than just about anybody else in the country," he said.
The number of new unemployment claims in Hampton Roads rose to 5,135 in June, from 3,542 in May.
The increase was mostly because of students entering the work force.
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