North Carolina’s unemployment rate dipped down to ten percent from 10.4 percent last month.
WHQR’s Michelle Bliss reports that despite the decrease in state unemployment, North Carolina is still reporting higher numbers than the national rate, which was 8.6 percent last month.
Employment Security Commission Spokesperson Larry Parker says that even though the public sector has been shedding jobs in North Carolina this year, private sector employment has gradually grown throughout the state.
“Over the year, you see that a majority of those job sectors did have gains. The job sectors that did not have gains were government, construction was down by 2,700 jobs, and there were a couple of other sectors with just minor losses. But other than that, you had some strong gains in some other job sectors.”
Parker says that the state has gained 10,000 new leisure and hospitality services jobs in the past year along with 12,000 new positions in trade, transportation, and utilities.
Unemployment spiked back in September, but Parker says despite that setback, North Carolina is slowly recuperating from the recession’s peak.
“If you look at it from a yearly standpoint, we’ve really maintained—although we got up to 10.5 in September—I think overall, there’s not been a lot of change, but at least there’s been a little bit of growth in that private sector job world.”
The recession hit North Carolina hardest in February of last year when 11.4 percent of residents were out of work. Last month, the state gained 4,600 private sector jobs but lost 800 public positions.
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