States begin to see job losses from Trump's cuts, housing and spending slowdowns

Virginia and New Jersey may be among the states most affected by the hiring slowdown that enraged President Donald Trump when it appeared in an Aug. 1 jobs report showing the United States had 258,000 fewer jobs than initially reported in May and June.

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A Stateline analysis of the data shows how several states, especially Virginia and New Jersey, shed jobs in the second quarter of this year, which includes May and June.

In Virginia, there were job losses blamed on canceled federal contracts in Northern Virginia as part of cuts made by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE. Meanwhile, a slow housing market shuttered a plywood factory in the southern part of the state, and DOGE efforts canceled flooding control contracts on the coast.

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In a state like Virginia with a high number of federal employees and contract workers, lost jobs may show up sooner in the household survey since many federal jobs are not reflected on state-level payrolls if they are done by subcontractors, if the agency or contractor is based in another state, or if DOGE cuts allowed people to stop work but stay on the payroll until September. Those people might report being unemployed in the household survey but wouldn’t show up in other surveys until October.

More at:

https://virginiamercury.com/2025/09/01/states-begin-to-see-job-losses-from-trumps-cuts-housing-and-spending-slowdowns/