North Carolina (seasonally adjusted): 11.1%
Durham: 8%*
Orange: 6.4%
Wake: 8.6%
Granville: 10.6%
Person: 11.5%
Chatham: 7.6%
* County rates are not seasonally adjusted.
Source: Employment Security Commission of North Carolina
By Monica Chen
mchen@heraldsun.com; 419-6636
DURHAM -- Following eye-popping record highs earlier this year and last year, unemployment levels have come back down in the Triangle -- but experts say it's too early to celebrate.
Triangle counties, along with the rest of the state, saw declines in unemployment rates for March, according to figures released by the Employment Security Commission of North Carolina on Friday.
In Durham County, the unemployment dropped from 8.5 percent in February and January to 8 percent for March. The month's rate was the lowest the county had seen since November, but is still a significant hike from a year ago, when the county rate was 7.5 percent.
Orange County had the state's lowest unemployment rate in March, at 6.4 percent. Wake County's unemployment rate 8.6 percent, down from 9.2 percent in February.
North Carolina's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 11.1 percent for March. The county numbers are not adjusted.
March and April typically have the lowest unemployment rates of any year.
Chapel Hill analyst John Quinterno said that although the state saw some declines in jobless rates for March, the long-term trend for the job market is still weak.
Since the recession's onset in December 2007, Quinterno pointed out, North Carolina has shed 6.7 percent of its payroll employment base, or 280,200 positions, and has seen the unemployment rate more than double.
Quinterno said the job market likely hit the trough in the late summer to early fall of 2009. Since then, the state and its metropolitan areas and counties haven't seen much "meaningful" change in the job market.
"We really aren't losing jobs at the pace we were, but we aren't really creating jobs either and putting a meaningful dent in the employment picture," Quinterno said. "We just don't have really robust jobs creation."
Initial claims, or the number of people who are newly unemployed, is up by 3,238 from the February. However, the total of 45,251 for March is down 22.3 percent from a year ago.
Unemployment rates also declined in all metropolitan statistical areas in the state.
In the Durham-Chapel Hill MSA, the jobless rate dropped from 8.4 percent in February to 7.8 percent in March. Raleigh-Cary saw a drop from 9.6 percent in February to 8.9 percent in March.
The Triangle's combined statistical area had an unemployment rate of 8.7 percent, down from 9.4 percent in February.
Some sectors showed slight growth in March. Over the month, changes for the Durham metro included an increase of 800 jobs, mostly in the education and health services and leisure and hospitality sectors. Over the past year, the area lost 3,600 jobs, mostly in manufacturing and professional and business services.
The Raleigh-Cary metro also had a jobs gain from February to March, with 2,300 more jobs, mostly in leisure and hospitality and education and health services as well. Over the year, employment was also down by 6,700 jobs, mostly shed from manufacturing and construction.
