Rowan County’s unemployment rate fell by nearly 50 percent from March to April, a report from the Employment Security Commission says.

But the report comes on the heels of an announcement that Pillowtex is cutting 590 jobs from their local workforce by mid-July.

The number may have dropped because a number of laid-off Freightliner workers have used up all their unemployment time. Though they may not have found jobs, they are no longer counted in the state’s unemployment survey.

The report states that in March, Rowan County had an unemployment rate of 8.3 percent. Amonth later, that number had fallen to 4.4 percent. Figures for May are not yet available.

According to Martha Bowman, acting director of the labor market division of the Employment Security Commission, the number of claims in Rowan dropped.

In March, there were 2,370 continued unemployment claims in Rowan County, according to the state employment agency. One month later, claims dropped to 980. The largest drop occurred in the transportation equipment sector.

Bowman would not speculate on particular companies in that sector.

The drop could be attributed to 1,300 layoffs at Freightliner last October. Here’s why:

A person can draw 26 weeks of unemployment within a 52-week calendar year. Once those 26 weeks are used, the person can’t file for unemployment and the state doesn’t count them in its unemployment rate.

Twenty-five weeks elapsed between the layoff and April 12, when the employment rate was measured that month. Any workers who had idle weeks before they were finally laid off would have lost their benefits and not been counted in the local survey. That could explain the sudden drop.

A person is eligible to draw unemployment during most work stoppages or temporary layoffs. If, however, any money is earned during that time period, no unemployment benefits are awarded.

Each month, the Employment Security Commission uses a standard methodology for determining unemployment rates, mandated by the U.S. Department of Labor. The state employment agency said that the formulas allow officials to compare a county in North Carolina to a county in another state.

The state agency takes an employment estimate for the Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill metropolitan area during the week of the 12th of each month. Salisbury, Concord and Kannapolis are included in that region.

Once a reasonable estimate has been reached, the counties are broken out from that sum.

While Rowan County’s unemployment rate was even with the state average, Cabarrus County fared slightly better, even thought their rate rose in April. Cabarrus reported a 3.4 percent, up just one-tenth of a percent.

Rowan and Cabarrus were among 53 N.C. counties that scored at 5 percent unemployment or lower. The state average is 4.4 percent.

Only seven counties in the state had unemployment rates greater than 10 percent.

Bowman added that it isn’t rare to see this type of up-and-down movement.

“With all of the layoffs we’ve experienced, we’re looking at the number of people unemployed,” she said.

A seasonal or temporary layoff can wreak havoc on the month-to-month measurements, and Bowman recommends using the annual average as a more accurate gauge.

Tony Sloop, assistant manager of the local Employment Security Commission office said that a temporary shutdown or slowdown would cause those workers to file unemployment, when they really were only out of work for a short period of time before returning to their jobs.

If that happened around, the 12th of the month, the number of people filing unemployment would rise sharply.

“There’s not that many permanently unemployed people finding jobs [in April],” Sloop said.

Contact Michael Bostian at 704-797-4280 or mbostian@salisburypost.com .