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Business and Economy

Virginia Ranks Near the Bottom in Job Growth. This Blue Ridge City Is Bucking the Trend

Roanoke Rambler

• 6 min read

Staffing cuts and structural employment shifts lead to low job growth in Virginia

Roanoke, VA

Author: Roanoke Rambler Staff

Published: 8:00 AM EST July 29, 2026

Edited: 8:00 AM EST July 29, 2026

ROANOKE, Va. — Virginia just posted one of its worst job-growth report cards in years, shedding more than 43,000 net payroll jobs over the past 12 months and landing the Commonwealth at 49th in the nation for job growth. But drive four hours southwest of Richmond, into the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the story flips: Roanoke City's unemployment rate sits at just 3.7%, and neighboring Salem is even tighter at 3.2%.

It's a defiant local economy, and it's being fueled by two forces at once: a wave of foreign and domestic manufacturers planting new flags in the region, and a homegrown push to turn Roanoke into a biotech and life-sciences hub.

Who's Doing the Hiring

Roanoke's job base is still anchored by a handful of institutional giants. Carilion Clinic, the nonprofit health system that dominates the regional economy, employs more than 10,000 people, making it the largest private employer in the region. Rounding out the region's largest private employers: HCA Virginia Health System (Lewis Gale), Walmart, Wells Fargo Bank, and Kroger, each with 1,000 to 2,999 workers, alongside major manufacturers like Cornerstone Building Brands, Altec Industries, Virginia Transformer, and Smurfit Westrock (Roanoke Regional Partnership). On the public-sector side, Roanoke City and Roanoke County Schools, the City of Roanoke, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs all rank among the region's largest employers as well.

By the numbers, health care and social assistance make up 18.5% of the regional economy, the single largest slice, followed by manufacturing at 10.4% and retail trade at 10.1%.

The Sector Actually Driving New Growth

Ask John Hull, president and CEO of the Roanoke Regional Partnership, which sector is carrying the region's momentum right now, and the answer is unambiguous: manufacturing. "Tucked within the year's tale is manufacturing as the standout industry, with the largest job totals and investments in 2025 falling in that sector," Hull told Virginia Business.

The evidence is stacking up across the region. In Roanoke County, defense contractor Elbit Systems of America is plowing $30 million into an expansion of its night-vision goggles plant, adding 288 jobs and pushing the site's total workforce past 1,000. In Botetourt County, HVAC manufacturer Munters is spending nearly $30 million on a 200,000-square-foot addition expected to create 270 jobs. In Salem, medical-device maker Integer is adding 83 jobs to ramp up production of catheter components, while QualiChem is investing $9 million to expand its metalworking-fluids operation.

The New Names on the Map

The headline-grabber is Ringana. The Austrian life-sciences and cosmetics company is building its first-ever U.S. headquarters at Blue Ridge Commerce Park in Roanoke — an $85 million investment expected to create 435 new jobs over five years, in roles spanning shipping and logistics to research and skincare development (City of Roanoke). Regional economic development officials call it the largest foreign direct investment in the Roanoke region's history and the biggest jobs announcement by a newly locating manufacturer in more than 30 years. The state is backing the deal with a $5 million Commonwealth's Opportunity Fund grant and customized training through Virginia's Talent Accelerator Program (Roanoke Regional Partnership). A pilot production run begins this September, with full production starting in November and a formal groundbreaking planned for 2027.

Ringana isn't the only bet the region is making on new industries. The City of Roanoke and Carilion Clinic have teamed up to launch RoVa Labs, a biotechnology incubator designed to support life-sciences, biotech, and healthcare startups commercializing local research — a project expected to bring up to 250 new jobs to the area over five years. Earlier this year, that ecosystem produced its first tangible win: The Tiny Cargo Company opened a $1.5 million clean-room manufacturing facility in Roanoke, one of the first dedicated exosome advanced-manufacturing sites in the world — adding six high-paying research, manufacturing, and regulatory jobs, backed by the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation (PR Newswire).

A Statewide Pattern in Southwest and Southside Virginia

Roanoke isn't an isolated bright spot — it's the leading edge of a broader manufacturing and logistics rebound rippling across Southwest and Southside Virginia. In Halifax County, roughly 90 minutes southeast of Roanoke, Governor Abigail Spanberger broke ground in June on a $457 million Hitachi Energy production facility in South Boston, expected to create 825 new jobs and expand the company's power transformer manufacturing capacity (Office of the Governor of Virginia, media advisory, June 29, 2026). The project drew a bipartisan lineup to the groundbreaking, including Sen. Mark Warner, Rep. John McGuire, and Secretary of Commerce and Trade Carrie Chenery, underscoring how significant state and federal officials consider the deal.

A day later, Spanberger announced a second Southside win: national farm-and-home retailer Rural King will invest $40 million to convert a vacant 500,000-square-foot warehouse in Henry County — formerly occupied by VF Corporation — into a new distribution center, creating 150 jobs. The state is supporting the project with a $750,000 Commonwealth's Opportunity Fund grant, Virginia Jobs Investment Program training funds, and federal New Markets Tax Credits "Rural King's decision to locate its new distribution center in Henry County underscores Virginia's position as a premier logistics hub on the East Coast," Spanberger said in the announcement (Office of the Governor of Virginia).

Together, the two deals point to nearly 1,000 new jobs landing within a couple hours' drive of Roanoke in a single week last June — reinforcing that the region's job resilience isn't a fluke, but part of a wider pattern of manufacturing and logistics investment across rural Virginia even as the state's overall job numbers slide.

The Washington Backdrop: A Fight Over Affordability

Not every official is framing Virginia's economy as a success story. In a June newsletter to constituents, Sen. Mark Warner argued that families statewide are still being squeezed by rising costs for gas, groceries, housing, and health care, and pointed to what he called reckless tariff policy out of Washington as a driver of those costs (Office of Sen. Mark Warner, constituent newsletter, June 4, 2026). Warner highlighted legislation he says would help: the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which the Senate passed and which he says would expand housing supply and curb corporate investors buying up single-family homes; a bill he introduced to roll back tariffs, which his office estimates would return roughly $175 million in tariff costs to Virginia consumers and small businesses; and a measure requiring large data centers to pay a greater share of the electricity costs they generate, aimed at preventing households from subsidizing corporate power demand (Office of Sen. Mark Warner).

That data center bill lands close to home: Google is already building a roughly one-million-square-foot data center campus in Botetourt County's Greenfield Industrial Park, part of the same wave of industrial investment reshaping the Roanoke region's economy and recently announced that it will use a mix of electronic and water cooling. It's a reminder that the forces driving new jobs to Southwest Virginia — manufacturing expansion, data infrastructure, logistics investment — are also at the center of live political debates in Washington over who bears the cost of that growth. Warner's newsletter also included sharper political criticism of the Trump administration's spending priorities, including references to a proposed White House ballroom project and pardons connected to the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack.

The Bottom Line

Put the numbers side by side and the projected job growth adds up fast: 435 jobs from Ringana, up to 250 from RoVa Labs-linked biotech ventures, 288 from Elbit's expansion, 270 from Munters, and 83 from Integer in the Roanoke region alone — plus another 825 from Hitachi Energy and 150 from Rural King in neighboring Southside Virginia. None of it erases Virginia's statewide slump, but it explains why Roanoke and Salem are posting some of the tightest labor markets in the Commonwealth while the state as a whole sits near the bottom of the national rankings — even as officials in Washington continue to argue over whether ordinary families are actually feeling the benefit. The open question, isn't whether the jobs are coming — it's whether the region will have enough trained skilled people to fill the necessary positions according to Garry Norris, owner of Express Employment Professionals in Roanoke, a staffing agency that places workers in the region daily.

Current Labor Market Indicators (Virginia)

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