The half-full crowd is thrilled that Mecklenburg County’s population stayed ahead that of Wake County — according to 2010 census numbers. Meck has 919,600 people, Wake but 901,000 residents. OK. More bodies.
Who has more productive bodies — or are we not supposed to care about that?
State figures say that Meck had a labor force of 454,549 in December 2010, along with 409,252 jobs for an unemployment rate of 10 percent. Wake had a workforce of 447,122 and 413,512 for an unemployment rate of 7.5 percent.
In other words, despite having 18,000 more people, Mecklenburg has 4300 fewer jobs. Also think of it this way: In Wake 45.8 percent of the population supports the county, in Meck just 44.5 percent of population does. That does not sound like much of a difference, but it is the difference between 11,000 or 12,000 people in the wagon — or pulling the wagon. Tell me which one you’d prefer.
More importantly, this productivity gap is something to keep an eye on moving forward. No, it is not a huge, crippling deal now — but if trends continue and Wake continues to add jobs while Meck stagnates — we have to ask ourselves if it is really a great thing to have the unemployable “flocking” to Charlotte.
