In December, LandAmerica Financial Group officials hailed the sale of its primary title-insurance subsidiaries as a way to save jobs while the parent company was in bankruptcy. But the transfer of 5,500 LandAmerica employees to Fidelity National Financial Inc. didn’t work out well for many workers. By the end of January, the Jacksonville, Fla.-based company had cut 1,500 jobs, or 27 percent of the work force it inherited from the purchase of LandAmerica’s subsidiaries—Lawyers Title Insurance Co., Commonwealth Land Title Corp. and United Capital Title Insurance Co.

Unemployment rates rose in 98 percent of U.S. metropolitan areas last year, with one of the largest increases in the Southside Virginia city of Danville, the Labor Department reported yesterday. Danville, which saw its jobless rate bolt to 11.5 percent, had the third-biggest increase of 5.6 percentage points, according to the federal data.

Facing a sudden loss of income, many of today’s newly unemployed turn to the Virginia Employment Commission, which administers the state’s unemployment insurance program offering weekly payments to qualified individuals.

With company after company announcing layoffs, Kings Dominion is hiring. And applicants are flocking—often from long distances—to put their names in for a job at the 400-acre theme park in Hanover County. Corky Donnelly and Jennifer Bondurant drove two hours last week from Berryville near Northern Virginia to apply for work at the park.

The Richmond region has one of the lowest unemployment rates among the country’s largest metro areas, but the rate jumped 56 percent in November compared with the same month in 2007.

Charles Cook, 45, never has filed for unemployment benefits before, but hard times started in November. Two weeks before Thanksgiving, he lost his job. Virginia’s unemployment rate rose to 4.6 in November, up 0.4 percentage points from October.

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Eight months pregnant, Keisha Snead got word in March that her job would disappear at the end of the day. Like thousands of others in the struggling economy, she was reduced to an uncomfortable status - unemployed.

When it comes to unemployment insurance, applicants need to know their Social Security numbers. And what day it happens to be. To handle increased demand for unemployment services, the Virginia Employment Commission is testing a new program starting Monday.

An alarming half-million American jobs vanished last month, the worst mass layoffs in over a third of a century, as the nation hurtled toward what could be the hardest hard times since the Great Depression.

Despite an increase in unemployment claims, the jobless rate in Virginia remained steady in October because of seasonal hiring. Experts, however, don’t expect that to last. The jobless rate stayed at 4.2 percent, according to data released yesterday by the Virginia Employment Commission. Virginia has the eighth-lowest jobless rate in the U.S.

NEW YORK After nine fruitless months of looking for work, Paul Nawrocki turned to a Depression-era tactic to find a job. In recent days the 59-year-old businessman has been walking the sidewalks of midtown Manhattan wearing a suit, a tie and a large signs that reads, “Almost homeless.“ “My unemployment benefits are going to run out in less than a month. I was getting a little panicked and I didn’t know what to do,“ said Nawrocki, who was laid off from his job at a toy company in February.

Karen Lucas sent out her résumé a week ago, the same day she was let go from Circuit City Stores Inc. She and about 700 others. Yesterday, Lucas was at a job fair led by Capital TechSearch Inc., a Richmond-based placement firm for Internet technology workers. “I’m looking for contacts and help with making my résumé better,“ said Lucas, a single mother of a senior at University of Virginia.

WASHINGTON (AP)—The number of newly laid-off individuals seeking unemployment benefits has jumped to a seven-year high, the government said today. The Labor Department reported that jobless claims last week increased by 32,000 to a seasonally adjusted 516,000. That is the highest total since just after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and second-highest since 1992.

Eight months pregnant, Keisha Snead got word in March that her job would disappear at the end of the day. Like thousands of others in the struggling economy, she was reduced to an uncomfortable status - unemployed. Job losses during the past year have shown no mercy, striking all levels, from data-entry clerks to department managers, from new hires to senior employees.