Labor Market

Regional Workforce – 1101,829
25-mile Radius Workforce – 474,746

Unemployment Rate, November 2020

Southern Virginia 5.3%
Extended Labor Market Area 5.1%
Statewide 4.6%

National Career Readiness Certificate

The Southern Virginia region has partnered with ACT to become a Certified Work Ready Community (CWRC). The CWRC is based on ACT’s National Career Readiness Certificate (NCRC), a stackable credential that forms the basic building block for career pathways built through public-private partnerships between education and industry. The NCRC documents an individual’s foundational workplace skills such as math, reading and locating information – skills required for a majority of today’s jobs.

Number of NCRC’s obtained by the workforce in the region (as of January 2020):

Southern Virginia

7,659

Educational Attainment

On-Time Graduation Rate (Class of 2018) 89.0%
Age 25+ who are high school graduates (2013-2017) 80.6%
Age 25+ who have earned a Bachelor's Degree or higher (2013-2017) 15.3%