N.C. unemployment rate stays at 10.8 percent

RALEIGH (AP) — North Carolina's unemployment rate stayed stuck in double-digit territory for the eighth straight month in September, with 10.8 percent of the state's ready and willing workers unable to find jobs, data released Friday said.

North Carolina's unemployment rate has been hovering around 11 percent since February and has been worse than the national average for more than a year, the monthly report by the state's Employment Security Commission said. August's jobless rate was also 10.8 percent.

September also marked an eighth consecutive month the unemployment rate topped the previous historic high. Before this year, the state's highest unemployment rate was 9.7 percent in March 1983, a level matched in January.

But there were hopeful signs in the state jobless report. Newly laid off workers filed 77,312 initial claims for unemployment insurance in September, almost 5,000 fewer than in August. More than half of those initial claims indicated that employees expect to be recalled to their jobs.

Economists closely watch initial claims, which are considered a measure of layoffs and the willingness of companies to add jobs.

September also saw 9,700 more people in the work force of 4 million, a number too small to change the unemployment rate but still a good sign.

http://www.news-record.com/content/2009/10/16/article/nc_unemployment_rate_stays_at_108_percent

But we do have a bright spot, the Wise aluminum, used to be Reynolds, until Reynolds decided to sale rather than bust th union, just got a long term contract to make Bud cans. A new super duper rail car assembly plant opening further downstream the Tennessee River, with about 1200 union jobs to come. Bud is now Belgian of course, and the rail car factory is Canadian. Dang! Europe and Canada are outsourcing their dirty jobs to us now!