NC jobless rate falls to 9.4 percent in April

RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina's jobless rate fell to 9.4 percent in April from 9.7 percent in March, the state reported Friday.

The number of people receiving unemployment benefits declined by 12,686 to 439,368, according to the Labor and Economic Analysis Division at the state's Department of Commerce.

The number of people working grew by 1,471 to nearly 4.23 million, the state said.

Helping drive down the jobless rate was a drop of 11,215 people in the work force. When people no longer receive unemployment benefits or are no longer looking for work, they are not counted in the labor force.

Unemployment has now declined four consecutive months.

The national jobless rate in April was 8.1 percent.

The state unemployment rate was 10.4 percent a year ago.

The N.C. rate is seasonally adjusted for factors such as weather.

“Since January of 2010, our rate has dropped by two full percentage points and employers have added more than 100,000 jobs,” N.C. Department of Commerce Deputy Secretary Dale Carroll noted in a statement about the new numbers.

Since the jobless rate hit 10.7 percent in July and August of last year, it has fallen steadily, dropping under 10 percent to 9.9 percent in February.

Over the past year, employers have added 30,300 jobs with 25,500 of those coming in the private sector.

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"The statistic is not "the jobless rate", it is the number of people drawing "unemployment insurance". Why does the media insist on using the same misleading terms that the government does when evaluating the data?"

That statement is incorrect. Folks receiving UI are only one part of the statistical process used in calculating this rate. Anyone looking for work, and not employed during the survey week, is counted as being in the labor force and as being 'unemployed'. This will include recent HS and college grads who enter the job market, have never worked, and therefore are certainly not receiving UI. Also includes those who exhaust their benefits, IF they are still actively seeking work! (and if you look back more than one year, you will see just how far we still have to go in getting jobs back!)

joeblink
May 21, 2012 4:13 p.m.

Honestly, the 100K a year jobs have been replaced by "Welcome to Starbucks, may I take your order?" (or any other "service oriented business out there". We have taken the high tech or high paying professions and have turned them into "service oriented" industry jobs that people have to take in order to survive. Why is the unemployment rate going down? It's because all of these people are either running out of benefits or taking lesser jobs just to survive in this economy. The next generation will be our revenge. The babies of today will be the legacy we leave to avvenge us in the future.

friskymonkey2
May 18, 2012 7:04 p.m.

Why does this not make ANY sense:

Helping drive down the jobless rate was a drop of 11,215 people in the work force. When people no longer receive unemployment benefits or are no longer looking for work, they are not counted in the labor force.

This article seems to make it seem that the rate is BETTER, but it is ONLY better because some folks are no longer drawing unemployment. It does NOT mean that they have been rehired. So, it seems that this is a VERY misleading article.

computer trainer
May 18, 2012 5:46 p.m.

Yawn.......

fatchanceson
May 18, 2012 5:32 p.m.

Obama Inflates ALL HIS Statises. Have Yet to Find a REAL American who Voted for Him !!! jwjsdj

Then you must not be talking to many people because over 69,000,000 Americans voted for him including roughly 45% of the military veterans. Yes, I am sure those people aren't Americans at all.