It could take Virginia years to fully recover from pandemic

NORFOLK, Va. (AP)- A new report from Old Dominion University says that it will likely take years for the state of Virginia to achieve a complete economic recovery from the devastating coronavirus pandemic and Governor Northam’s lockdown measures.

The project comes from the 2020 State of the Commonwealth Report from ODU’s Strome College of Business.

Sunday’s report said the pandemic ended a record of 11 straight quarters of economic growth and wiped out nearly a decade of job gains.

Virginia had added half a million jobs between February 2010 and February of 2020. But by April 2020, about 438,000 jobs in Virginia were temporarily furloughed or permanently laid off. And while Virginia has recovered about 200,000 jobs since then, there has been slowing job growth.