The headline unemployment rate for Virginia is 3.8% — the official U-3 figure from the BLS for May 2026. But U-3 counts only people with no job who searched in the last four weeks. It leaves out involuntary part-timers, discouraged workers who gave up looking, and informal or unreported work.
AURmetric's real unemployment rate for Virginia is 7.1%, measured on a U-6 basis — the broadest measure the government publishes. That's a 3.3-point gap the headline number hides.
AURmetric breaks Virginia down to every county: the real unemployment rate, the industries in highest demand, average wages, and lost economic potential — all built on public BLS data and updated monthly.
Open the Virginia dashboard →AURmetric starts from the official U-6 basis and, county by county, lifts each county's U-3 using published state ratios. It counts people, not paychecks, and reports the number honestly. Read the full methodology and every data source. AURmetric is independent and not affiliated with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.