Economy

Rosslyn is home to the tallest high rises in the Washington, D.C. area, some of which rank among the tallest in the state.

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell described Northern Virginia as "the economic engine of the state" during a January 2010 Northern Virginia Technology Council address. The federal government is a major employer in Northern Virginia, which is home to numerous government agencies; these include the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters and the Pentagon (headquarters of the Department of Defense), as well as Fort Myer, Fort Belvoir, Marine Corps Base Quantico, the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and the United States Geological Survey.

Government contracting is an important part of the region's economy. Arlington alone is home to over 600 federal contractors, and has the highest weekly wages of any major jurisdiction in the Washington metropolitan area.

As of 2007, the Northern Virginia office submarkets contain 172,000,000 square feet (16,000,000 m2) of office space, 33% more than those in Washington and 55% more than those in its Maryland suburbs. 8,000,000 square feet (740,000 m2) of office space is under construction in Northern Virginia. 60% of the construction is occurring in the Dulles Corridor submarket.

Northern Virginia's data centers currently carry more than 50% of the nation's Internet traffic, and by 2012 Dominion Power expects that 10% of all electricity it sends to Northern Virginia will be used by the region's data centers alone. Loudoun County has 4,000,000 square feet (370,000 m2) of data center space and currently has 800,000 square feet (74,000 m2) approved or under construction. An estimated 70% of Amazon's EC2 servers are located in their Northern Virginia zone, which have notably been affected by power outages.

In September 2008 the unemployment rate in Northern Virginia was 3.2%, the lowest of any metropolitan area if ranked. The national unemployment rate in September 2008 was 6.2%. While the U.S. as a whole had negative job growth from September 2007 to September 2008, Northern Virginia gained 12,800 jobs, representing half of Virginia's new jobs. After months of increases, the unemployment rate of Northern Virginia held steady at 5.2% in March 2008. As of July 2010 the unemployment rate of the region 5.2%, down from 5.3% in the previous month.

Notable companies Main articles: Dulles Technology Corridor and List of companies headquartered in Northern Virginia Gannett Company headquarters in Tysons Corner

Northern Virginia is home to half of the state's Fortune 500 companies:

Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) Northrop Grumman General Dynamics Capital One AES Corporation Computer Sciences Corporation Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) NII Holdings Gannett Company Booz Allen Hamilton

Additionally, Verisign, the manager of the .com and .net top-level domains is based in the region. Companies formerly headquartered in the region include AOL, Mobil, Nextel/Sprint Nextel, PSINet, Sallie Mae, MCI Communications, and UUNET.