Rut-roh.
The state info tells the tale. Most of North Carolina is treading water on in the jobless front over the summer, but Mecklenburg’s rate ticked up slightly from 11.5 to 11.7 percent. At the same time, jobless rates in Gaston, Catawba, and Union counties all declined by about a half-point, while counties over the border in South Carolina saw as much as a full-point reduction.
Meanwhile, up in the Triangle the jobless rate in Wake County held steady at 8.8 percent as the overall industry employment numbers showed a job loss of 12,600 for that region. Compare that to the almost 20,000 jobs the state calculates were lost during the month in the Charlotte metro area and you see that the Triangle is in much better shape economically right now.
Having said all that, summer employment numbers are very dicey things. I will be much more interested to see the August numbers as they will start to reflect people going back to year-around jobs. If they have any. The big takeaway right now is that North Carolina remains in worse shape that the rest of the country job-wise, and the Charlotte area is worse-off than much of the rest of the state, especially when compared to the Triangle.
