Data put out today by the Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) shows that nearly 8% of the city was unemployed in July, only a fraction improvement over June’s figures.

The VEC data showed that the city had a civilian labor force of 100,938 in July. Of that, 93,084 remained employed while 7,854 had filed for unemployment.

The level of unemployment was marginally better than the 8,050 unemployed in June. While the figures aren’t in for August, data tracked week to week showed that the unemployment filings increased in July but dipped back down dramatically near the beginning of August. Last week, those numbers hit the lowest levels since April as the local economy starts to steadily improved.

Still, the unemployment numbers remain significantly higher than they were before the pandemic. VEC data showed that in July 2019, unemployment was only 2.1%. Kendel Taylor, the city’s Director of Finance, warned that full recovery could be two years away.