Labor Market

Regional Workforce – 102.056
25-mile Radius Workforce – 472,031

Unemployment Rate, June 2018

Southern Virginia 4.7%
Extended Labor Market Area 4.0%
Statewide 3.3%

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

7,117

Educational Attainment

On-Time Graduation Rate (Class of 2017) 87.8%
Age 25+ who are high school graduates (2012-2016) 80.2%
Age 25+ who have earned a Bachelor's Degree or higher (2012-2016) 14.9%