NORFOLK, Va. — A new report from Old Dominion University stated that it will likely take years for the state of Virginia to achieve a complete economic recovery from the devastating coronavirus pandemic.
The project comes from the 2020 State of the Commonwealth Report from ODU's Strome College of Business.
The report, released Sunday, said the pandemic ended a record of 11 straight quarters of economic growth and wiped out nearly a decade of job gains.
The state 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.
The report also found Virginia's Black and Hispanic residents were disproportionately affected when it came to virus-related deaths, job losses and signs of anxiety or depression.
"Inequalities in household wealth have meant that Hispanic and Black or African American households have been less able, on average, to cope with the economic shock of the pandemic," the report said.
The report also found that Black and Hispanic school children are more adversely impacted by remote schooling.
"To improve opportunities for all Virginians, we must confront these facts with open, frank and transparent discussion," the report said.
