Unemployment rates fell in seven states in November, rose in five and remained stable in the other 38 states, including Virginia, where the unemployment rate last month was unchanged at 2.6%, according to the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Only four states — North Dakota, South Carolina, Utah and Vermont — have a lower unemployment rate, and Virginia’s 2.6% jobless rate is tied with four other states.
Vermont’s unemployment rate, at 2.3% last month, was the lowest among all states.
For Virginia, it’s the lowest the unemployment rate has been since just before the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, when it was as low as 2.1%. During the Great Recession, Virginia’s unemployment rate peaked in 2010 at 7.1%.
Maryland’s unemployment rate in November was also unchanged from October, at 3.6%.
Alaska still has the highest state unemployment rate in November, at 6.1%.
