Arlington’s unemployment rate dropped below 3% in April for the first time since last June, with the lowest number of residents counted as jobless in a year.
With 146,680 county residents employed in the civilian workforce and 4,424 looking for jobs, the county’s unemployment rate stood at 2.9% for the month, according to data reported June 3 by the Virginia Department of Workforce Development and Advancement.
The unemployment rate was unchanged from a year before, when the civilian-workforce employment count was 150,916 and the number of county residents seeking jobs was 4,070.
While the figures may indicate improving or at least stabilizing economic conditions, April marked the eighth straight month where county employment was less than 150,000.
That decline in total employment is part of a regional trend.
“We’re down about 108,000 jobs year over year — that’s a challenge,” said Terry Clower, director of the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy & Government.
The decrease extends beyond Trump-era federal cutbacks, Clower said. The decline was exacerbated by Covid and dates back to even before the pandemic, he said.
“Folks left” the region and didn’t return, Clower said at a June 3 forum on regional economic trends sponsored by the university.
The labor force in neighboring Falls Church is following similar trends.
While unemployment was up from 2.9% in April 2025 to 3.5% in April 2026, the number of unemployed in the city — 270 — dropped to its lowest level in 10 months.
But Falls Church, too, is seeing fewer residents with jobs. The 7,922 counted as employed in April 2026 marked the first time since December 2022 that total employment was below 8,000.
Across Northern Virginia, the jobless rate in April was 3.8%, representing 1.67 million in the civilian workforce and about 54,700 seeking jobs. A year ago, the Northern Virginia unemployment rate was 2.7%.
Across Virginia, April’s jobless rate of 3.4% was up from 3% a year before, according to state figures.
Nationally, the Bureau of Labor Statistics delivered a mixed April jobs report. Unemployment rates were higher in April than a year earlier in 200 of the nation’s 387 metropolitan areas, lower in 152 and unchanged in 35.
The national, non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in April was 4%, effectively unchanged from a year before.
The lowest jobless rates of 1.7% each were found in two South Dakota metro areas: Rapid City and Sioux Falls. The highest rate, 16.5%, was found in El Centro, Calif.
Among the 56 metro areas with populations of more than a million, the lowest rates were in Birmingham and Honolulu at 2.4% each. The highest rate was found in Fresno, Calif., at 8.1%.
In April, nonfarm payroll employment increased over the year in four metropolitan areas, decreased in four others and was essentially unchanged in the remaining 379.
Las Vegas saw the largest increase in total year-over-year employment with a growth of 23,600. The D.C. metro region had the biggest decline at 97,100, off 2.9% according to the federal data.
Figures represent non-seasonally adjusted data. All April 2026 figures are preliminary and subject to revision.
