Cars will be flooded in Petersburg, Virginia in July. Many of the canceled federal contracts that contributed to loss of job in the state were the flood control. (Photo with the kind permission of Petersburg Fire Rescue & Emergency Services)
Virginia and New Jersey may be the most affected by the states that are affected by the defense against attitudes that President Donald Trump has incensed when it appeared in one August 1st Jobs Report This shows that the United States had 258,000 fewer jobs than was originally reported in May and June.
Such revisions of previous reports are based on the latest wage and salary accounting data and are routine. In this case, however, the scale was shocking and has shown the smallest monthly jobs since 1968 since December 2020 in the Pandemie period 2020 and the greatest revision of jobs outside of recessions.
In response to this, Trump explained that the numbers were wrong, released the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and as a replacement -ej Antoni, a loyalist who has, he has suggested the job report to be suspended. Trump wrongly said in one Truth of social contribution That the revised jobs were “figures” to manipulate to look bad “.
In addition to these attention -grated actions, however, the numbers show the real effects of Trump’s work that the federal government imposes.
A stateline analysis of the data shows how several states, in particular Virginia and New Jersey, submit jobs in the second quarter of this year, including May and June.
In Virginia, Elon Musk, who was announced as a Doge, was held responsible in Virginia as part of the cuts of the Department of Government Efficiency, which was known as a Doge, at the framework of the Elon Musk department of Elon Musk. In the meantime, a sluggish real estate market excluded a plywood factory in the southern part of the state, and the efforts of Doge canceled the flood control contracts on the coast.
Jay Ford, Policy Manager from Virginia at Chesapeake Bay Foundation, informed a state legislative committee in June that 50 million US dollars were reduced in the Hampton Roads region near the coast, which led to an boost in unemployment claims.
This included 20 million US dollars to fix the floods in Hampton, where almost a quarter of the houses are in flood zones and 24 million US dollars to repair a Portsmouth dam that could fail in a gigantic storm.
“This is work that she urgently needs,” said Ford when hearing the committee. “There was a real focus on certain keywords such as” climate “or” resistance “, and I think people somehow collapsed unnecessarily.”
For example, the American Institute for Research announced 233 Leastings in Virginia in May and 50 in Maryland since the beginning of the year. The projects of the non-profit organization include cooperation with school districts to solve performance gaps and absence, the creation of AI-controlled staff training and to deal with problems in healthcare such as improving kidney disease, reducing the costs for medical professionals and strengthening access to health care by keeping rural hospitals open.
“The changes occurred in the federal government have brought considerable challenges for many federal entrepreneurs, including Air,” said Dana Tofig, the company’s spokeswoman.
Other recent layoffs in Virginia: 442 workers at Northern Virginia Geunze, which was funded by the state fundamentally financed defense research centers and was exposed to 28 million US dollars in cancellation; And 554 workers In a closed plywood factory in South Virginia.
“Challenges for the affordability of living space and a 30-year-old lower turnover with homes influence our plywood business, since many of our plywood products are used for repair and conversion projects that often occur when houses change ownership,” said Georgia-Pacific in a May in a May Press release.
Stateline dealt with two state job surveys in the second quarter, which sometimes have very different results: the so-called wage and salary billing survey among companies that the Bureau of Labor Statistics uses for its monthly report, which still has to be revised at the state level, and the BLS Local unemployment statistics Program in which the work changes based on monthly budget surveys estimate.
The Laus estimates are often referred to as the “budget survey”, since they mainly rely on surveys of households and ask how many people are busy. This includes jobs that the salary billing survey cannot receive, e.g. B. Contract and agricultural workplaces, and record jobs in which people live instead of states in which there are employers.
In a state such as Virginia with a high number of federal employees and contract workers, lost jobs can appear in the budget survey earlier, since many federal jobs do not think at the wage level at the state level if they are carried out by subcontractors if the agency or contractor is located in a different state, or if doGen cuts end the work, but will remain on the wages until September. These people report that they are unemployed in the budget survey would only appear in other surveys in October.
The budget survey shows about the same number of slowdown jobs as the revised national salary billing report, so that it can be a window in the trends, many caused by the government of the government, health care and foreign aid as well as by slowing down sales in shops and housing markets.
Both surveys rely on diminutive rehearsals and are often revised later, said Charles Gascon, economist and research officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The final quarterly census of employment and wages that will be published on December 3 for the second quarter will be more conclusive, he said.
The budget surveys show Virginia with the country’s largest job losses in the second quarter, around 43,000 and per month since February. Previously, the state has achieved jobs every month since the peak of pandemic workplace losses in April 2020.
In the separate survey, New Jersey has the most job losses 15,400 in the second quarter. suffered layoffs In retail transactions, increasing consumer expenses, increased shoplifting and drugs complain for their role in opioid epidemic.
Walmart announced 481 layoffs in the drugstores in Hoboken, New Jersey, Corporate Office and Rite AID, which were released in the bankruptcy of Chapter 11 affected by opioid crisis lawsuits That also hit Walmart and Other pharmacy chains. The pharmaceutical companies Bristol Myers Squibb and Novartis have also announced hundreds of layoffs in New Jersey, citing patented drugs.
Shaky state finances
The increasing unemployment in combination with frail sales growth indicates an “economic fragility” for state finances, said Lucy Dadayan, a main defender of the city trilite tax Policy Center, which is pursuing the state tax revenue.
Nationally, unemployment in July was 4.2%, just like July 2024, but compared to the latest low in 3.4% in April 2023, with the greatest boost in Mississippi, Virginia and Oregon.
Unemployment has dropped the most compared to July 2024 in Indiana, Illinois, New York and West Virginia.
The states with the highest unemployment rates in July were California (5.5%), Nevada (5.4%) and Michigan (5.3%), while the lowest in South Dakota (1.9%), North Dakota (2.5%) and Vermont (2.6%) were.
“I think the dramatic jobs in May and June signal the economic fragility. Warning signs at state level suggest that the effects will gradually show,” said Dadayan. “And of course the states face tax challenges caused by a large, beautiful Bill Act tax and expenditure decisions.”
State finances are a mixed picture, with income tax revenue increasing due to forceful stock and sales tax growth if consumers withdraw in expenses, said Dadayan.
The state dismissal obligations give us early reading.
– Amanda Goodall, a staff analyst called “The Job Chick” on social media
In Virginia, the economically desperate area around Emporia will stay after closing the Plywood work, said Del. Otto Wachsmann, a Republican who represents the area in the State House of Delegates. The area is already from the indefinite closure of A nearby head of the Ebern, meat plant of a Ebern This employed 600 people after a outbreak of Listeria last year.
The municipality, part of the southern region “Wood Basket”, has a gigantic logging industry that now has difficulty finding fresh markets with higher costs for the truck, Wachsmann said. “We are working hard to find new industries to come here.”
New Jersey, Vermont and Virginia with the highest installments showed the discharge rates in April, as the online Human resource platform calculated.
Amanda Goodall, a workwoman who describes herself as a “job chick” on social media, said that the layoffs reflect the restructuring in gigantic companies and the federal cuts. She wrote about the discharge rates in A fresh contribution.
“These are not statistical rivers. They reflect real company movements, especially in New Jersey and Virginia,” said Goodall in an e -mail declaration to Stateline. “The bigger problem is that nobody cares about what the unemployment rate says if he cannot find an interview for a job for which you are qualified. The state discharge figures give us early reading.”
California and Texas
California and Texas recorded the largest jobs in both surveys in the second quarter.
Texas added 42,700 jobs in the salary accounting survey, with the largest boost in the category of private education services and 14,400 jobs, as the state A approved Plan for school vouchers According to an explanation to Stateline of the Texas Workforce Commission.
California added 25,300 jobs. However, the budget survey showed an boost of almost 111,000 jobs, the highest in the country.
An Institute for Public Policy of California Blog post in July The state’s labor market described as “at best this year in a hold-stey pattern” and the stubbornly increased unemployment rate of the state of 5.4%, but also to improve jobs compared to the previous year.
“A pattern -resistant pattern is a welcome change compared to the previous year,” said the post written by Sarah Bohn, a senior fellow at the institute.
Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be achieved thenderson@stateline.org.
