Lee County’s unemployment rate was 4.8% in August, according to preliminary figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is down from 5.0% in June and July, and close to where it stood a year earlier, at 4.7%.
The rate alone hides a longer trend. The county’s labor force, the people who are either working or looking for work, has shrunk by 517 people since August 2016, according to an analysis of the bureau’s county data by The Lee Daily Register.
August by the numbers
The bureau’s Local Area Unemployment Statistics for Lee County show 7,601 people in the labor force in August. Of those, 7,235 had jobs and 366 were unemployed. The August numbers are marked preliminary and can be revised.
County figures are not adjusted for seasonal swings, so the fairest comparison is with the same month in other years. Here is how August looks in Lee County over the past decade:
| August | Labor force | Employed | Unemployed | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 8,118 | 7,538 | 580 | 7.1% |
| 2019 | 7,755 | 7,359 | 396 | 5.1% |
| 2020 | 7,636 | 7,062 | 574 | 7.5% |
| 2024 | 7,668 | 7,338 | 330 | 4.3% |
| 2025 | 7,626 | 7,268 | 358 | 4.7% |
| 2026 | 7,601 | 7,235 | 366 | 4.8% |
Fewer jobless, and fewer workers
Compared with August 2016, the number of unemployed people in Lee County fell by 214, from 580 to 366. But the number of people with jobs also fell, by 303, from 7,538 to 7,235.
That is how a rate can improve while the local workforce gets smaller. The labor force dropped from 8,118 to 7,601, a decline of about 6.4% over 10 years. The unemployment rate counts only people who are looking for work, so people who stop looking, retire or move away leave the count entirely.
Regional officials have pointed to the same problem. At the Board of Supervisors’ December 2025 meeting, Rachel Patton of the Southwest Virginia Workforce Development Board said the labor force participation rate from Tazewell County west to Lee County is about 45%, compared with about 65% for the state and nation, according to the minutes. Participation rates are not published monthly at the county level, so that figure comes from the workforce board, not the bureau’s series used here.
How Lee compares with its neighbors
Lee County’s August rate was the second highest among its far Southwest Virginia neighbors, and above the state and national rates, using the same unadjusted bureau data:
- Wise County: 4.9%
- Lee County: 4.8%
- Dickenson County: 4.7%
- Russell County: 4.6%
- City of Norton: 4.5%
- Scott County: 4.1%
- Virginia: 3.6%
- United States: 4.3%
The gap with the rest of Virginia has narrowed over the decade. In August 2016, Lee County’s rate was 2.8 percentage points above the statewide rate of 4.3%. This August, the gap was 1.2 points.
Reading the monthly number
Small counties produce jumpy numbers, because a change of a few dozen people moves the rate. Lee County’s unemployed count moved from 382 in July to 366 in August, a change of 16 people, while the labor force shrank by 50. Changes that small moved the rate from 5.0% to 4.8%.
For that reason, the year-over-year and 10-year comparisons tell residents more than any single month. On those measures, fewer people in Lee County are out of work than a decade ago, and fewer people are in the workforce at all.
