1. A computer implemented method for using spare processing cores in a virtualized environment, the computer implemented method comprising: responsive to detecting that a first workload partition needs to run on a virtual processor in the virtualized system, changing a state of the virtual processor to a wait state, wherein the virtualized system comprises a plurality of nodes; determining a first node from the plurality of nodes in the virtualized system comprising memory that is local to the workload partition; determining whether a non-spare processor core in the first node is available to run the workload partition, wherein states of non-spare processor cores and spare processor cores in the virtualized system are maintained in a processor core status list managed by a virtual partition manager; responsive to a determination that no non-spare processor core is available to run the first workload partition, locating a free non-spare processor core in a second node from the plurality of nodes; changing a state of the free non-spare processor core in the second node to an inactive state; changing a state of a spare processor core in the first node to an active state; and dispatching the first workload partition to the spare processor core in the first node for execution.