Rowan County had the highest unemployment rate in North Carolina during the month of October, according to reports from the Employment Security Commission of North Carolina.

Rowan’s rate of 9.5 percent reflected for the first time the Color-Tex closing in Spencer on Sept. 28 that put about 350 more people out of work. The increase represented a jump from the August rate of 8.9 percent, but a much larger increase from the September rate of 3 percent.

Bob Burns, regional labor market analyst with the N.C. Employment Security Commission, calls the monthly rates a snapshot of what happened during the week rates are figured — the week of the 12th of every month.

Sydney Armstrong, in the Raleigh Unemployment Statistics Unit of the commission, explained that the monthly unemployment rates are calculated by counting the people who either filed a new claim or signed up for a week of unemployment with no earnings during the week of the 12th.

She said anyone who files a claim during that week shows up as part of the rating, even if they have another job lined up within the next 30 days. If they are not working the week of the 12th, they are considered unemployed.

After the rates for August were released, Armstrong called the Rowan figure of 8.9 “an aberration” caused by the fact that a great many claims were filed during the survey week.She said the same sort of thing had happened one or twice before.

Once, in Cabarrus, she said, the rates shot up to 17 percent after Cannon layed people off. Some 15,000 employees filed claims, she said, even though they weren’t all looking for another job.

But the Rowan County rate of 9 percent for October does not fully reflect the Freightliner layoff of 1,300, which was effective Oct. 20, after the month’s rates had been calculated.

Earlier, some officials in Rowan County had worried about an unemployment rate that was so low it made it difficult to attract new business. A study completed in April by Rowan-Cabarrus Community College and the Chambers of Commerce ofRowan and Cabarrus counties said an unemployment rate between 4 and 6 percent can be considered “full employment.”

At the time, both Rowan and Cabarrus counties had unemployment rates lower than the state average. In 1998, the unemployment rate in Rowan County was 2.7 percent. The rate in Cabarrus for October is 3 percent.

Watauga County had the state’s lowest unemployment rate in October at 1.1 percent, with Currituck County and Orange County doing almost as well at 1.2 percent. The second highest unemployment rate came from Columbus County at 9.1 percent.

The next report on unemployment rates from the N.C. Employment Commission will come out Dec. 15. The latest figures are available on the Internet at www.esc.state.nc.us .