| Northern Virginia way ahead on job creation
Virginia Business
June 2004
Apparently
the rich do get richer. Northern Virginia
— already the state’s strongest economy
— can now claim to be the fastest-growing job
market in the country. Northern Virginia added about
50,000 jobs between March 2003 and March 2004, higher
than any region in the country, according to the Bureau
of Labor Statistics.
Northern Virginia’s job growth helped drive the
entire Washington, D.C., area economy, lowering its
unemployment rate to just 3 percent, the lowest of any
metropolitan area. The Washington region’s net
gain for jobs during the one-year period was 2.2 percent,
compared to a 0.6 percent job growth for all of 2003.
Many of the new jobs came during the past six months.
Some predict the job market will stay strong at least
through next year as the region continues to benefit
from federal spending. Economist Stephen Fuller of George
Mason University predicts Northern Virginia will add
a total of 47,000 jobs this year and 51,000 next year.
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