Each quarter, WHQR Reporter Kelly Kenoyer interviews Mouhcine Guettabi about the region's economic conditions. This latest report focuses on jobs, while prior interviews have covered housing, migration, and other topics.
Kelly Kenoyer: Mouhcine Guettabi, the regional economist for UNCW, thank you for joining us.
Mouhcine Guettabi: Thank you for having me.
KK: So I want to ask you a little bit about the national picture and a little bit about the local picture. One thing that I've heard a lot from economists nationally is about the job market, how we're in kind of a “low hire, low fire” situation. Can you explain what that means and whether you're seeing that locally?
MG: Certainly, that's been the theme now for a little bit more than a year. “Low hire, low fire” is just a way of describing a labor market that's frozen. You and I have had a conversation previously about the housing market being frozen, but that seems to be the case now in the labor market at the national level, and it simply means that companies are facing quite a bit of uncertainty from a policy perspective, but also from a consumer spending perspective, and so they're hesitant to hire a lot of people. But they're also being prudent about layoffs, because they don't know if this uncertainty is potentially temporary, and they don't want to be replacing people in six months or a year, because the cost of replacing workers is fairly substantial. And so this results in a labor market where not a lot is happening, and so it's really hard to get jobs, but there aren't significant layoffs yet.
KK: Are you seeing that in Wilmington as well?
MG: The way I describe the Wilmington market is a market that's experienced a noticeable deceleration in growth, but we're still growing. Just to kind of put some numbers on it: between September 2024 and September 2025 the labor market added almost 2% jobs, which is a healthy clip, but it's closer to the rate at which we were growing pre-pandemic, as opposed to the rate that we got accustomed to over the last couple of years. And importantly, there is a little bit of bifurcation that's happening within the labor market, in that there are a couple of sectors, healthcare, construction, for example, that have been driving much of the growth locally. And we're seeing a little bit of weakness in finance, some weakness in the information sector, but it's a labor market that's still healthy. It's just that it's come back down to earth, if you will, or pre-pandemic levels.
KK: So, back down to earth. But are we doing better than the national average?
MG: Yeah, we're doing considerably better than the national average. We're doing a little bit better than the statewide average. Over the last five to six years, we were the second-fastest-growing metropolitan area in the state, only behind Raleigh. So just to put some numbers in the conversation, if you look between September 2019 and September 2025, we added about 16% jobs. Only Raleigh added more jobs at about 18%. Now we're about the fifth fastest growing metropolitan area in the state which is still healthy. It's just again, this reversion, if you will, back to pre-pandemic levels.
KK: Interesting. Speaking of pre-pandemic, we talked a little bit off mic about how the economy looked before the pandemic and then after the pandemic here in Wilmington, can you talk a bit about how we've diversified?
MG: Yeah, it's interesting. I think that the perception about Wilmington is that it's a leisure and hospitality, tourism-driven economy, and that's still partially the case. But what's been interesting is we've seen this fairly significant growth in sectors like healthcare, like finance, like the information sector, that are now contributing a bigger portion of the economic activity, and they've grown at a much faster clip than leisure and hospitality, which means I think that the perception of the area is still catching up to the reality of the economy that we currently face.
KK: Do you think that we'll benefit from being less reliant on tourism? Because I know it can be a volatile industry.
MG: Yeah. You know, look, just because of where we are, proximity to the beach, seasonality is always going to be a part of the economy, but I think the overall economy has become considerably less seasonal, talking about volatility, because of this diversification. The other thing that's important is many of these sectors that have grown are paying considerably higher wages, which is good for the residents, contingent on residents actually getting some of these jobs.
KK: Makes sense. Mouhcine Guettabi, regional economist for UNCW, thanks for coming in.
MG: Thank you for having me.
