By Neil Offen

noffen@heraldsun.com; 419-6646

DURHAM -- While unemployment rates decreased in 76 North Carolina counties in September, the percentage of workers without a job stayed steady in Durham County, according to data released Friday by the state Employment Security Commission.

Durham's unemployment rate for the month was 8 percent, the same as in August, but down from 8.4 percent in July.

While Durham's rate remained level, the Triangle area overall saw a slight dip in unemployment during the month, from 8.6 percent in August to 8.4 percent in September. The Durham-Chapel Hill metropolitan statistical area also saw a decline, from 8 percent to 7.7 percent.

"The Triangle, because it's so diverse, has held up better, at least more than any other part of the state," said Larry Parker, a spokesman for the ESC. "But with an overall rate of 8.4, that's still fairly high, even for an area that's doing fairly well."

The unemployment rate for Orange County, already one of the lowest in North Carolina, continued dropping, going from 6.8 percent in August to 6.3 percent last month. Wake County's jobless rate also declined, from August's 8.4 percent to 8.3 in September.

Monthly jobless rates are not seasonally adjusted, and the declines, which occurred in three quarters of the state's counties, could be at least partially attributable to students returning to schools and thus dropping out of the labor force.

Parker also pointed out that the drops in the rates don't necessarily mean more state residents are going back to work.

"People could have stopped looking for work, or moved out of the state, or there could be other reasons the labor force dropped," he said. "And the majority of these declines are really very small. We are seeing some job announcements, but we still have a long way to go with more than half of the counties above the state [unemployment] average."

The state rate for September was 10.4 percent.

ESC Chairman Moses Carey Jr. called the declines encouraging, but cautioned against too much optimism.

"We must remember that most of these same counties remain at a high rate" of unemployment, Carey said. "The global and national recession continues to affect our state."

According to the ESC data, there were 11,112 Durham County residents receiving unemployment benefits in September. That's out of an overall workforce in the county of 139,654.