The Washington metropolitan area closed out December with a jobless rate that was on par with both a month and a year before.
With 3,462,738 in the civilian workforce and 86,654 looking for jobs, the region’s unemployment rate was 2.5 percent for December, according to figures reported Feb. 6 by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
That’s unchanged both from November 2023 and from December 2022, according to the figures, and makes the Washington region one of 31 of the nation’s 389 metro areas to see no year-over-year change in jobless rates.
(Rates were up in 230 areas, down in 128; the national, non-seasonally adjusted December rate was 3.5%, up from 3.3%.)
Among all metro areas nationally, nine saw rates lower than 2 percent, led by Burlington, Vt. (1.6%) and Fargo, N.D. and Manhattan, Kan. (1.7% each). Ten metro areas had jobless rates of 8 percent or higher, led by El Centro, Calif. (18.3%).
Among the 51 metro areas with populations of more than a million, Baltimore (2%) had the lowest jobless rate while Las Vegas (5.3%) recorded the highest.
In Virginia as a whole, there were 4,547,751 reported in the civilian workforce and 123,186 looking for work, a rate of 2.7 percent. That compares to 2.9 percent a month previously and 2.6 percent a year before.
Among Virginia’s metro areas outside the Washington region, Staunton/Waynesboro and Charlottesville reported the lowest jobless rates (2.4% each) while Lynchburg (3.2%) had the highest.
In terms of year-over-year non-farm employment, totals were up in 61 metro areas nationally, essentially unchanged in the rest. Dallas-Fort Worth had the largest raw increase (+134,200 jobs), followed by Los Angeles (+132,100) and New York City (+93,000). In percentage terms, the biggest gainers were Charleston, S.C. (+6%) and Bloomington, Ind. (+4.5%).
