Jobless rate falls faster here than anywhere else

Economists see slow growth ahead

By: Steve Welker | Morganton News Herald
Published: December 12, 2010

Morganton, NC --

No U.S. metropolitan area has seen a larger drop in its unemployment rate in the past year than Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton, according to a new federal report.
The area made up of Burke, Caldwell, Alexander and Catawba counties had a 14.5 percent unemployment rate in October 2009, according to the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. By October this year that unemployment rate was down to 11.7 percent — a 2.9 percent change for the better.
Among 373 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) across the United States, only one, Elkhart-Goshen in far-northern Indiana, matched that improvement in unemployment numbers.
Officially, there were 19,000 people out of work in Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton in October, which is approximately 5,000 less than the 24,200 a year earlier.
However, the news from BLS was not all good. The size of Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton’s labor force in the same 12 months dropped from nearly 167,000 people to less than 162,000. Many of those people exhausted their unemployment benefits and dropped off the official rolls, simply stopped looking for work, retired or moved away.
Also, BLS said non-farm employers in the four-county area reported they had 143,000 people on the job in October 2009. By October 2010, the number of jobs in the area was down to 141,000 — a loss of 2,000.
Also, the BLS numbers released this past week were virtually unchanged from those a month earlier — the same unemployment rate, the same number of jobs.
Western North Carolina’s economy grew only 0.1 percent in October, according to the newest Western North Carolina Economic Index compiled at Appalachian State University and released Friday.
While October’s growth was slight, it was the third consecutive monthly increase in the index that tracks the level of economic activity in 25 western N.C. counties.
The index now stands at its highest mark in two years.
“The recovery, if you want to call it that, remains weak,” said Dr. Todd Cherry, co-author of the report and director of the Center for Economic Research and Policy Analysis at Appalachian.
“Though we have seen some positive movement in recent months, it has yet to be strong enough to translate to any significant gains in jobs and confidence,” Cherry said. “We did see some job growth in the first half of the year, but these gains have been lost in recent months. The employment picture for WNC remains a big concern.”
Western North Carolina’s seasonally adjusted employment decreased 0.21 percent in October, a slightly greater loss than elsewhere in the state.
“The regional economy is weak and is not in a good position to absorb the recent declines in regional employment,” Cherry said. “The numbers, however, do not capture any impacts from the holiday season, which may buy us some time before the fundamentals improve.”
The WNC Index is coauthored by Appalachian State associate professors John W. Dawson and Richard Crepeau. It provides a monthly account of western N.C. economic conditions. For more information, go to www.cerpa.appstate.edu/wncindex.php.