Government & Politics
Alexandria area leads Virginia in job losses as federal cuts deepen

The Washington region lost 62,100 federal jobs in a year — a 16.5% drop that outpaces every major U.S. metro except Baltimore — and the Arlington-Alexandria-Reston division shed more total jobs than any other Virginia metro, fresh data shows two days before the city adopts a $977.3 million budget.

Ryan Belmore
April 27, 2026 . 2:24 PM 5 min read


Aerial view of King Street in Old Town. (Ben Schumin, CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, via Wikimedia Commons)


The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments' Regional Economic Monitoring System dashboard shows unemployment in the Washington MSA rising to 4.4% in January, with Alexandria at 3.7%. (Screenshot/Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments)

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The metropolitan division that includes Alexandria lost more jobs over the past year than any other metro area in Virginia, according to data released last week by Virginia Works — and a separate analysis released Monday by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments shows the broader Washington region is bearing a disproportionate share of the nation's federal-workforce contraction. The numbers land just two days before the City Council adopts its fiscal 2027 budget.

Total nonfarm employment in the Arlington-Alexandria-Reston Metropolitan Division fell to 1,617,500 in January, down 22,700 jobs, or 1.4%, from a year earlier and down 4,700 from December alone, the state's Department of Workforce Development and Advancement reported April 22. Both figures led all 10 Virginia metro areas tracked. The Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk region was a distant second, losing 2,300 jobs over the year.

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