Northern Virginia ended 2025 with nearly 44% more people unemployed than it had started the year.
A total of 57,728 residents were counted as jobless for December, up from 40,203 a year before, according to figures reported Feb. 6 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Total employment across Northern Virginia was down 1.8% to 1,772,238 people, according to the federal data, while the year-over-year unemployment rate rose from 2.2% to 3.3%.
Northern Virginia’s spike in joblessness mirrored across the Washington metro region as a whole. The 133,530 metro-area residents looking for jobs in December represented an increase of 39% from a year before.
Like Northern Virginia, total regional employment was down, dropping from 3.55 million December 2024 to 3.49 million in December 2025.
The metro area’s jobless rate of 3.8% was up from 2.7% a year before.
Nationally, unemployment rates were higher in December than a year before in 255 of the 387 metropolitan areas, lower in 110 and unchanged in 22, according to preliminary figures.
The national non-seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate in December was 4.1%, up from 3.8% a year before. A total of 223 metro areas had December jobless rates below the national average, 155 areas had rates above it and nine areas had rates equal to it.
Nationally, the lowest jobless rates were turned in by two Alabama metro areas — Decatur and Huntsville — at 1.9% each. The highest rate was reported in El Centro, Calif., at 18.6%.
Of the nation’s 56 metro areas with populations of at least a million, the lowest jobless rate was found in Honolulu at 2.1%. The highest was reported in Fresno, Calif., at 8.2%.
Virginia jobless rates by locality for the end of 2025 are expected to be reported shortly by state officials.
Photo via Austin Distel/Unsplash
