The number of initial joblessclaims in Virginia dropped by 4.3% last week compared to the previous filing week, the Virginia Employment Commission reported Thursday, while continued claims fell by 7.8%.
For the week ending Nov. 7, 9,909 Virginians filed initial claims for unemployment, a decrease of 441 from the previous week.
Last week, 91,960 Virginians remained unemployed, a 7.8% decrease from the previous week, but 73,760 higher than the 18,200 continued claims from the same period last year. People receiving unemployment benefits through the VEC must file weekly unemployment claims in order to continue receiving benefits.
“Over half of claims were in the accommodation/food service, health care, administrative support and retail trade industries,” according to the VEC. “The continued claims total is mainly comprised of those recent initial claimants who continued to file for unemployment insurance benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The regions of the state that have been most impacted continue to be Northern Virginia, Richmond and Hampton Roads.
Below are the top 10 localities, listed by number of initial unemployment claims, for the week ending Nov. 7:
Nationwide, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims for last week was 709,000, a decrease of 48,000 from the previous week’s revised level, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. There were 238,996 initial claims during the same week last year.
Since February, InvestSWVA has been working with highway guardrail manufacturer SPIG Industry LLC on its expansion plans, and on Thursday Gov. Ralph Northam announced the Washington County-based company’s plans to invest $7.9 million to expand its operations in the Bristol-Washington Industrial Park, creating 113 jobs.
Formed in 2007 by brothers Joshua and Chris Harman, SPIG Industry has been working since 2011 to develop the SGET end terminal, a safety device located at the end of guardrails that absorbs and dissipates energy created during a head-on automobile or truck crash. The product has undergone rigorous safety testing — and in crash simulations a windshield has never cracked under impact with the safety device, says Joshua Harman.
The product has already been approved in Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, New Mexico, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, South America, Central America and the province of Ontario, Canada. It has not yet been approved in Virginia, but the Harman brothers say they are working diligently to get it approved here.
“The state DOTs [departments of transportation] have never seen performance like this,” says Joshua Harman of the SGET end terminals. “We revolutionized the entire process.”
Through the expansion, deemed Project Guardian, SPIG Industry plans to build three production plants and a welding shop, as well as a new rail spur line to continue development work on the SGET product. The company, which currently has a 40,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Washington County, manufactures highway guardrails and guardrail end terminals for federal and state highway contractors and installers.
Video courtesy InvestSWVA
“The continued growth of SPIG Industry demonstrates the tremendous success that a homegrown manufacturer can achieve here in Virginia,” Gov. Ralph Northam said in a statement. “SPIG’s expanded campus in Washington County will give the company increased production capacity and strategic access to its fast-growing customer base, while providing more than 100 quality jobs to the hardworking people of Southwest Virginia. We thank SPIG for reinvesting in the commonwealth and contributing to our economic recovery amid this global health crisis.”
The company is making a comeback from a 2015 bankruptcy filing following Joshua Harman’s whistleblower complaint against Trinity Industries Inc. According to reports, Harman sued Trinity in 2012 on behalf of the government, arguing that the company’s redesigned ET-Plus model guardrail end product was unsafe, and led to accidents, some fatal. In 2017, a federal appeals court overturned the $663.4 million judgment against Trinity, according to reports.
The brothers considered Tennessee and North Carolina for the expansion, but wanted to keep the project close to home as they were both born and raised near the facility.
“We just wanted to bring the help and support our local community,” says Joshua Harman. “Logistically it made all the sense with easy access to I-81 and [Interstate] 77 not far away.”
SPIG Industry will hire welders and machinists as part of the expansion. Photo courtesy InvestSWVA
The pay for jobs ranges based on skill sets, including welders and machinists, but starts at approximately $15 per hour, according to the company. SPIG Industry has already hired approximately 15 people as part of its expansion, with plans for about 100 more hires.
The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with Washington County, InvestSWVA, the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission and the Department of Rail and Public Transportation to secure the project for Virginia. The Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission approved $99,500 in Tobacco Region Opportunity Funds for the project.
SPIG Industry is also eligible to apply for the Railroad Industrial Access Program through DRPT and to receive benefits from the Virginia Enterprise Zone Program, administered by the Department of Housing and Community Development. The company will also receive funding and services to support employee training activities through the Virginia Jobs Investment Program.
NASA awarded two missions to Falls Church-based Fortune 100 defense contractorNorthrop Grumman Corp. for 2023 launches that will deliver a combined total of approximately 16,500 pounds of cargo to the International Space Station.
“As a trusted and reliable partner to NASA, Northrop Grumman has played a critical role in keeping the International Space Station operational since 2014,” Frank DeMauro, Northrop Grumman vice president and general manager of tactical space systems, said in a statement. “With these additional flights to the orbiting laboratory, we will provide services to both NASA and our commercial partners and continue to use Cygnus not as just a cargo delivery and disposal vehicle, but as a platform for science and technology research and development opportunities.”
Under the Commercial Resupply Services contract-2 (CRS-2), Northrop Grumman has been providing resupply services to the station since 2016. For the missions announced Wednesday, Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft will be carried into orbit by the company’s Antares launch vehicle from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in eastern Virginia.
Northrop Grumman employs more than 90,000 people and reported $33.8 billion in 2019 revenue.
The U.S. Navy awarded Arlington-based defense contractorBAE Systems Inc. two task orders totaling more than $30 million to produce and integrate a mission-critical information warfare platform for U.S Navy vessels, the company announced Tuesday.
Under the task orders, BAE Systems will work on Consolidated Afloat Network Enterprise Services (CANES) for two Arleigh Burke class destroyers, a Virginia class submarine and two Blue Ridge class command ships. The goal of the task orders is to help sailors complete missions and stay connected while at sea, according to the company.
CANES consolidates five existing legacy network programs into a single support framework for command, control, communications, computers and intelligence (C4I) applications for the branch.
“These two task orders permit us to continue our high-quality, high-volume production and integration service, assembling and delivering CANES to the Navy safely and affordably,” Mark Keeler, vice president and general manager of BAE Systems’ Integrated Defense Solutions business, said in a statement. “CANES takes advantage of commercial-off-the-shelf insertion, which brings operational agility to the warfighter and savings to the U.S. Navy.”
Work on the task orders will be performed at BAE Systems’ 281,000-square-foot production facility in Summerville, South Carolina.
BAE Systems Inc. employs approximately 35,100 people across the U.S., U.K., Sweden and Israel. The company generated $11.4 billion in sales last year. BAE Systems Inc. is an independent U.S. subsidiary of England-based BAE Systems plc, one of Europe’s top defense contractors.
The Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) awarded Arlington-based Accenture Federal Services (AFS) a contract to work on the Information Warfare Research Project (IWRP), and McLean-based information technology company NuWave Solutions LLC will be a subcontractor on the project.
The subcontract amount was not disclosed.
Under the subcontract, NuWave will help AFS create a distributed environment — a system allowing teams to work on software from different physical workspaces — for adversary characterization assessments. The company will use artificial intelligence and analyst outputs during the creation of the project.
“Integrating automated AI into operational intelligence assessments requires a data and processing environment flexible enough to manage changing details about provenance and confidence,” Brian Frutchey, NuWave executive vice president, said in a statement. “In early phases, we demonstrated the power of this solution and look forward to scaling to an elastic, Navy enterprise.”
The goal of the project is to improve ONI’s sensitivity to a commander’s risk tolerance and mission priorities. The cloud project will help the Navy’s edge operations support, according to NuWave.
Founded in 1999, NuWave Solutions offers data management, analytics, artificial intelligence and cloud technology services to government and business clients. The company in 2017 was named by Virginia Business as one of the best places to work in the state.
AFS is the Arlington-based subsidiary of Irish Fortune Global 500 company Accenture. AFS has clients within the national security, federal health, military and civilian services industries. Last year, Accenture reported more than $40 billion in revenue.
McLean-based The Mitre Corp. announced Tuesday that its tech foundation, Engenuity, has launched a consortium with a goal of bringing together government, industry and academic institutions to advance innovations in 5Gtechnology.
The Open Generation Consortium’s founding members are Ericsson, Nokia Corp., Verizon, Altiostar, First iZ, Hush Aerospace, Kittyhawk, CTIA – The Wireless Association, Northeastern University and Virginia Tech.
“Collaborating with this diverse group of members across industry and government will allow the consortium to accelerate the enterprise value of 5G solutions on real-world networks,” Laurie Giandomenico, Mitre Engenuity’s chief acceleration officer, said in a statement. “Open Generation will speak with one technical voice, using clear-cut scientific evidence and create opportunities for innovation in a low-cost, collaborative way.”
The consortium will focus on testing 5G use cases for drones using Mitre’s 5G testbed for testing at Virginia Tech-owned ranges. The group plans to create a national test range network for other use cases.
“Developing innovations in 5G use cases for drones can impact smart cities, address crisis response and advance agriculture needs,” Charles Clancy, Mitre’s chief futurist and senior vice president and general manager of Mitre Labs, said in a statement. “But the impact of 5G goes well beyond drones by connecting everything from home appliances to critical infrastructure to the cloud, impacting health care, factory automation, critical infrastructure and more. We must begin creating solutions and setting new standards as one collaborative voice to ensure a safer future for all.”
The Mitre Corp., a not-for-profit organization that manages federally funded research and development centers, last year formed Engenuity. Mitre was founded in 1958 and has 8,400 employees.
With the holiday season looming, Virginia hotel revenues continue to decline when compared to last year, according to data from STR Inc., a CoStar Group division that provides weekly market data on the U.S. hospitality industry.
For the week of Nov. 1 through Nov. 7, hotel revenues in Virginia decreased by 53% and rooms sold declined by 35%, compared with the same week last year. The week prior saw a 45% decrease in revenue compared to 2019 and a 28% decline in rooms sold. Compared with last year, the average daily rate (ADR) paid for hotel rooms dropped 28% to $82.21, while revenue per available room (RevPAR) fell to $36.99, a 53% decline.
“As we enter into holidays and winter months, which are historically our worst months of the year, we’ll continue to see declines year-over-year,” says Eric Terry, president of the Virginia Restaurant, Lodging & Travel Association. “Hopefully, 2021 will start to show some improvement.”
Hotel revenues and rooms sold declined in most markets in Virginia last week, compared with the same time frame last year. Compared with the same week in 2019, revenues fell 71% in Northern Virginia, 45% in Charlottesville and 34% in Hampton Roads. During the week of Oct. 25 through Oct. 31, revenues fell 63% in Northern Virginia, 35% in Charlottesville and 26% in Hampton Roads. The number of rooms sold in Northern Virginia is down by 54%, Charlottesville is down by 28% and Hampton Roads is down by 21%.
Despite continued drops in revenue and number of rooms sold, Hampton Roads continues to fare well compared to national rates. Since the week of Sept. 6 through Sept. 12, it has had the smallest declines in both occupancy and RevPAR among the top 25 markets in the U.S.
Williamsburg continues to be the hardest-hit locality in Hampton Roads, though, seeing a 49% decline in revenue last week, followed by Newport News/Hampton with a 43% decline and Norfolk/Portsmouth with a 40% decrease.
“Performance of the hotels in the commonwealth during this week was in general worse than last week,” Professor Vinod Agarwal of Old Dominion University‘s Dragas Center for Economic Analysis and Policy said in a statement. “COVID-19 continues to have adverse impacts on this industry.”
The Herndon-based Center for Innovative Technology (CIT) announced Wednesday that it has hired Sean Mallon as vice president for its Entrepreneurial Ecosystems Division.
One of the CIT’s four newly created divisions, the Entrepreneurial Ecosystems Division serves as the operating arm for the Virginia Innovation Partnership Authority (VIPA). The division is designed to develop and strengthen programs in support of Virginia entrepreneurs. As vice president of the division, Mallon will be responsible for developing statewide resources for entrepreneurship development and capital formation. He will be based in CIT’s Richmond office.
“Sean is a great addition to CIT’s executive team and a perfect fit for the Ecosystems VP role,” CIT President and CEO Bob Stolle said in a statement. “He has extensive experience and is well-known and respected by our regional stakeholders.”
Mallon was most recently George Mason University’s associate vice president for entrepreneurship and innovation and also oversaw the Mason Enterprise Center, the Office of Technology Transfer and the Mason Innovation Exchange. Before joining Mason in 2016, he was senior investment director for CIT GAP Funds.
“I am delighted to be returning to CIT in this important new role,” Mallon said in a statement. “Virginia’s entrepreneurial spirit is strong, and CIT is committed to working with entrepreneurial ecosystem stakeholders around the commonwealth to strengthen the pipeline of high-growth startups and support entrepreneurs as they launch and scale their businesses.”
Mallon earned his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and his master’s degree in business administration from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Norfolk-based S.L. Nusbaum Realty Co. announced Wednesday that Austin Newman, vice president and director of office brokerage, has been named president of the Virginia chapter of the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors (SIOR).
With more than 3,400 members in 686 cities and 38 countries, SIOR is a global professional office and industrial real estate association that represents commercial real estate brokerage specialists.
Following his time with Henrico County-based commercial real estate firm Harrison & Bates, Newman joined S.L. Nusbaum in June to lead the expansion of the firm’s Office and Industrial Property Client Representation Services Division. He focuses on client representation, including lease and sales contract negotiations on Central and Eastern Virginia office and industrial properties. He has provided acquisition and disposition services for Capital One Financial Corp., Philip Morris International Inc., Atlantic Union Bank, Essex Bank and Gramercy Capital Corp.
Founded more than 114 years ago, S.L. Nusbaum provides brokerage services for shopping centers, apartment complexes, office, industrial, land and investment properties in the mid-Atlantic region.
Compared to last year, active Hampton Roads home listings were down nearly 40% in October, Real Estate Information Network Inc. (REIN) reported Tuesday.
Only 4,887 homes were on the market, compared to 8,089 last year marking the sixth consecutive month that inventory has fallen more than 32% year-over-year, according to REIN.
“Extremely low inventory has not slowed the unusually high number of sales,” REIN Executive Vice President Joan Griffey said in a statement, however. “The cycle is expected to continue through at least the end of the year, with some brokers and economists projecting it to last well into spring.”
October sales continued to increase in Hampton Roads. Residential pending sales increased by nearly 28% when compared to last year, with 3,230 homes going under contract. Settled sales also increased by nearly 20% when compared to last year, with 3,180 homes closing.
Median sales prices were also up last month. Hampton Roads’ median sales price rose from $240,000 to $271,000, a 12.92% increase.
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
Cookie
Duration
Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional
11 months
The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy
11 months
The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
viewed_cookie_policy
11 months
The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Sign In
Free Newsletter
