I would like to call to order the March 10th, 2026, Loudoun County Board of Supervisors Finance, Government Operations, and Economic Development Committee meeting.

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Uh we are gearing up for a big spring with Small Business Week, the spring fall tour, several big commercial development announcements, and a groundbreaking that will kick off a whole new phase of opportunity in Loudoun at Ravana at Innovation Station.

The February jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that nationally 92,000 jobs were lost in February, and the unemployment rate was at 4.4 percent.

Uh the Wall Street Journal notes that unemployed employment growth slowed markedly last year, and the U.S.

has lost jobs three of the past six months.

Many employers have been unnerved by the tariff policies and expectations that artificial intelligence could reduce staffing needs.

The 2024 one year data from the census uh estimated that 20,000 federal workers were residing in Loudoun and 24, and 6,488 federal jobs were based in Loudoun.

Uh that is fairly consistent with numbers we have been seeing.

However, it is an overall decrease of 250 federal jobs from Q1 to Q2.

In our job market, we have uh 3732 newly posted jobs, 3,732 newly posted jobs, and a total of 12,811 total active job listings.

That is a slight increase from January.

The uh top jobs available are from the companies north of Grumman, Khaki International, Allied Universal, Nightwing, Harris Teeter, Loudoun County Public Schools, Giant Food, and Amazon Web Services.

And the most recent CPI report was released on February 13th, and it showed prices in January up 2.4 percent compared to a year earlier, down slightly from the prior months.

The next CPI report is scheduled to be released tomorrow.

Representing the economic development authority tonight is Mr.

Tony Howard.

Thank you, uh Buddy.

Thank um thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee.

Um I'm here to talk about the work that the Economic Development Authority has been engaged in recently.

We are primarily focused on supporting the Department of Economic Development in a number of different ways, particularly in the entrepreneurship efforts, and we've been supportive of those efforts for a number of years, and we're examining what that looks like uh going forward in the new fiscal year.

Um also remain uh later focused on the issue of housing, and I know that there's some discussions about ways the county can address that issue uh in continuing more meaningful ways, and the EDA stands ready to support those uh as best that we can.

And we are also in the process of re-examining the memorandum of understanding that we have at the department that lays out the terms of engagement between the economic development authority and uh the Department of Economic Development, and we believe that we'll be coming back to this committee later this year um with a proposed redraft of that memorandum of understanding.

And I'm happy to take any questions or there may be some.

Okay.

Uh colleagues, do you have any questions?

Chair Randall.

Thank you, ma'am chair.

Buddy, I'm a little confused by what I'm looking at with the unemployment rates.

Um because the the rates are from November 25.

Is that the last time they were reported out?

Is that the issue?

That is.

That's there, the because of the government shut down, the they're so far behind on reports.

We haven't gotten a new report since November.

Since November of 25.

Well, that is and and okay.

That's that's not good.

And even in November of 25, what we see is that the unemployment rate in Loudoun ticked up in just about an entire point.

And for the first time, Loudoun's unemployment rate is uh is.

It's just point one, but it's still higher for the first time.

Do we I guess there's no no telling when we're getting new numbers?

Well, I mean, we we expect any day now, but I mean I don't really know.

We have not been given the any indication from the Bureau of Label Statistics uh when we can expect new numbers.

Um we will be watching very closely.

Um and the numbers are concerning.

Um at the same time, you know, adding 6,000 jobs here in Loudoun County is a great thing, and we have a ton of open jobs.

So you know, you're doing like every you're doing your job.

Not you, right?

I mean, but we cannot we do not what what happens at the at the in at the federal level impacts us, yet we can't control it.

Which makes it it's very frustrating because we know that it it positively or negatively impacts us, but we can't control it right now, it's just negatively impacting us, and we can't control that.

Having said that, I will say I am incredibly excited about a groundbreaking for Ravana.

Um, you know, uh I remember when I took office, there were all these um shovels in my office of all these all these groundbreakers that had happened, and most of them I took out of my office, and I haven't actually kept too many shovels.

I will keep this one.