Forbes reports:

a new study from the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) evaluated how licensing regulations impact employment for ten low and moderate income professions. Using publicly available data from the Institute for Justice and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this peer-reviewed study ranked each state according to a Red Tape Index which measured how burdensome each state’s licensure regulations are in relation to one another. The findings were crystal clear: states with more burdensome licensing requirements had significantly lower employment.

According to that study, North Carolina is in the middle of states (26th worst) in terms of red tape affecting those ten low- to moderate-income occupations.