The Virginia Employment Commission plans to close its office in Suffolk by Nov. 15, a spokeswoman confirmed Friday.

“Each month the numbers are going down,” Joyce Fogg, public relations manager for the Virginia Employment Commission, said regarding the traffic in the Suffolk office. “They’ve been dropping drastically. It’s dropped off over 200 customers, almost 300 customers in the past three months.”

Meanwhile, Fogg said, traffic in the Norfolk office is picking up, so the three or four employees in the Suffolk office will move to Norfolk to help with the workload.

Workers and employers using many of the commission’s services can accomplish them by phone or online, Fogg said. People can also visit the commission’s Portsmouth office.

Those without Internet access can visit a local library or other public computer access. Social Services departments in some cities have resource rooms, she said.

Local activists are concerned that the closure of the office still will make the services inaccessible to people in Suffolk and surrounding areas, especially after the Virginia Employment Commission’s office in Franklin closed more than a year ago.

“The city of Suffolk covers 430 square miles, which does not include the service delivery areas of Franklin City, Isle of Wight County and Southampton County added as a result of the Franklin closure,” Robert Stephens wrote in an email to Maurice Jones, Virginia secretary of commerce and trade. “Many of the clients in these service areas who reside in remote, rural areas and are without Internet access and/or transportation to access the VEC’s systems and services will be unable to meet their requirements of claims process. I ask that you reconsider the significant impact on the clients and job seekers as they access services and negotiate a process that is often daunting.”

Stephens noted the increase of unemployment in Suffolk almost a full percentage point in May from April.

“These numbers are likely to continue ticking upward if services are reduced,” he wrote, “even though Suffolk has tremendous work opportunities in warehousing and other related industries.”

The Suffolk location was not a full Virginia Employment Commission office, Fogg noted. The full office closed in May 2008, but the city offered space on the second floor at 157 N. Main St. for the Virginia Employment Commission to maintain a presence.

The staff there offered basic services including unemployment claims filing and job search help, Fogg said. A job club, which periodically invited employers with open positions to meet jobseekers, also met there. More comprehensive services were not available in Suffolk.

“It’s nice to do those kinds of things (like the job club), but as far as basic services, they can continue doing that from the Norfolk office,” Fogg said. “There’s no reason they can’t. It’s more cost-efficient for us to move them into a larger office.”

Fogg noted that although the space was free, technology and other costs still make it more efficient for the staff to move to Norfolk.

“We still have expenditures going out there, so it will be a cost savings to merge,” she said.

The Portsmouth office is located at 4824 George Washington Highway. Its phone number is 558-4455.

Visit www.vec.virginia.gov to access online services.