NONPROFIT EMPLOYMENT GROWTH DURING THE RECENT ECONOMIC DOWNTURN. As noted above, Virginia nonprofit employment grew over the past decade, achieving an average annual growth rate of 2.0 percent. In light of the deep national recession that afflicted the nation between 2007 and 2009, it is also critical to analyze how nonprofit employment fared over the past four years. Focusing the analysis on the recessionary period and beyond, it becomes clear than Virginia’s nonprofit sector has been under considerable strain in recent years. As shown in FIGURE 5.8: o Somewhat surprisingly, the data reveal that nonprofit employment actually grew by 3.3 percent during the first year of the recession, and 1.4 percent during the second year of the recession, for an average annual increase of 2.4 percent. By contrast, Virginia’s for-‐profit sector lost nearly 137,500 jobs over this two-‐year period. o Following the recession, nonprofit employment experienced no growth between 2009 and 2010, and just marginal growth (0.6 percent) between 2010 and 2011, yielding an average annual in-‐ crease of 0.3 percent. While for-‐profits continued to lose jobs between 2009 and 2010, they re-‐ bounded between 2010 and 2011, growing nearly twice as fast as nonprofits (1.1 percent vs. 0.6 percent). These trends suggest that it took longer for the national recession to take a toll on the state’s nonprof-‐ its. This is likely due, in part, to the national 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which di-‐ rected new revenues to nonprofits in Virginia and other states, and thus shielded nonprofits and those they serve from the full impact of the recession. However, Virginia for-‐profits seem to be on a quicker path to recovery than nonprofit establishments.
FIGURE 5.8 Annual average changes in nonprofit and for-‐profit employment in Virginia, by time period and year, 2007-‐2011
Recessionary Post-‐recessionary period period
By year, 2007-‐2011
2007-‐2008 A N N U A L C H A N G E I N E M P L O Y M E N T
2008-‐2009
2009-‐2010
2010-‐2011
2007-‐2009
2009-‐2011
3.3% 2.4% 1.4% 0.6%
1.1% 0.3% 0.3%
0.0% -‐0.5%
-‐0.7%
Nonprofit
-‐2.7% For-‐profit
-‐4.7%
Source: Johns Hopkins Nonprofit Economic Data Project based on QCEW data
20 | Nonprofit Economic Data Bulletin #41 | Virginia's nonprofit sector: SHAPING THE ECONOMIC, CULTURAL, AND SOCIAL LANDSCAPE