Unemployment in county declines in 2011

Employers in Chesterfield County created more than 3,500 jobs last year and unemployment fell to its lowest level in three years as the local job market continued its slow improvement from an economic downturn that has battered the nation.

Based on new figures released last week by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 159,305 people in Chesterfield were working in December, up 3,539, or 2.3 percent, from 155,766 at the end of 2010.

Meanwhile, the number of people counted as unemployed and actively seeking work fell by 630, or 5.8 percent, to 10,239 in December from 10,869 a year earlier.

For 2011 as a whole, an average of 158,196 people a month were employed, the highest level since 2008 and an increase of about 1 percent from 2010. At the same time, average unemployment fell 1,330, or 11.2 percent, to 10,511 last year, the lowest figure in three years.

Although last year’s performance was a significant improvement, it still left the county’s job market well below its pre-recession levels. Through December, Chesterfield had regained less than half – 46 percent – of the 12,741 jobs the county lost between the employment peak in July 2008 and the low in December 2009.

On a slightly more positive note, Chesterfield continued last year to outperform most Richmond-region localities, tying with Henrico at year-end for the second-lowest unemployment rate in the area, 6.0 percent. Only Powhatan County, with a labor market just one-12th the size of Chesterfield’s, had a lower rate, 5.8 percent.

Other adjacent localities posted significantly higher jobless rates: Dinwiddie County, 6.9 percent; Colonial Heights, 7.1 percent; Prince George County, 7.2 percent; Richmond, 8.9 percent; and Petersburg, 11.4 percent.

Chesterfield’s job market has been supported throughout the downturn by its ability to attract new business, and 2011 was a banner year for such deals.

According to data from the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, the county last year saw 13 announcements of new or expanded businesses, culminating in the December report that a new Amazon.com facility is expected to create more than 1,000 new jobs starting this year.

Altogether, the deals announced in 2011 were expected to create nearly 2,360 jobs, a huge jump from the six deals and 221 new jobs announced in 2010.

Greg Creswell, a commercial broker with Grubb & Ellis-Harrison & Bates real estate and immediate past chairman of the Chesterfield Business Council, said the county’s ability to attract new businesses like Amazon has helped support its labor market.

But equally important, he noted, “Chesterfield hasn’t forgotten about small business” and has created some innovative approaches, such as the annual Business First and biennial Business Climate Survey, to help keep existing county companies and encourage them to expand.

Statewide, Chesterfield ranked in a three-way tie in December for the 35th-lowest unemployment rate among Virginia’s 134 localities. The lowest was affluent Arlington County at 3.6 percent, while the highest was economically depressed Martinsville at 16.7 percent.

The local figures are not adjusted for seasonal factors, unlike the national numbers reported by the media each month. On an unadjusted basis, the national unemployment rate in December was 8.3 percent, while the statewide rate in December was 6.0 percent.