Staff and wire reports
Rowan County’s unemployment rate continued to decline in September, dipping below 13 percent for the first time since April, according to figures released Friday by the N.C. Employment Security Commission.
In September, 9,179 people were jobless in the county’s labor force of 71,709, for an unemployment rate of 12.8 percent, the state agency reported. That’s down from a 13.2 percent unemployment rate in August and 13.8 percent in July.
Rates also declined in three of the five counties bordering Rowan. Jobless rates declined in 76 of North Carolina’s 100 counties. The statewide unemployment rate was 10.4 percent the state said in adjusted figures Friday, down from 10.7 in August but the eighth straight month of double-digit unemployment in North Carolina.
“The global and national recession continues to affect our state,” Employment Security Commission Chairman Moses Carey Jr. said in a press release Friday.
“While 76 counties across North Carolina experienced an unemployment rate decrease, we must remember that most of these same counties remain at a high rate,” Carey said. “We’re encouraged by some recent job announcements, but we are also aware of some continued layoffs.”
Currituck County had the state’s lowest unemployment rate in September at 5 percent. It was the only North Carolina at or below that mark. Scotland County had the highest unemployment rate at 16.5 percent.
Unemployment throughout the Charlotte metropolitan region was 11.6 percent in September.
In counties directly adjacent to Rowan, September’s jobless rates were:
– Cabarrus, 11.4 percent, unchanged from August.
– Davie, 12.1 percent, up from 11.6 percent.
– Davidson, 12.5 percent, down from 13.1 percent.
– Iredell, 12.1 percent, down from 12.4 percent.
– Stanly, 11.9 percent, down from 12.2 percent.
Rowan received nearly $82.3 million in unemployment benefits and funding for programs aimed at the unemployed in September. Cabarrus received about $83.2 million.
There were hopeful signs in the state jobless report. Newly laid off workers filed 77,312 initial claims for unemployment insurance in September, almost 5,000 fewer than in August. More than half of those initial claims indicated that employees expect to be recalled to their jobs.
Economists closely watch initial claims, which are considered a measure of layoffs and the willingness of companies to add jobs. September also saw 9,700 more people in the work force of 4 million, a number too small to change the unemployment rate but still a good sign.
“It looks like we are not decreasing as much as we were. If you’re not going down that’s a better situation to be in,” said Stanley Black, an economist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “It’s mildly encouraging.”
North Carolina has lost about 250,000 jobs since the recession started in December 2007.