Last week’s news from the North Carolina Department of Commerce should be considered as a positive — unemployment rates in 74 of the state’s 100 counties either declined or remained unchanged during the month of July.
“Rates either dropped or remained the same in most of North Carolina in July,” said N.C. Department of Commerce Deputy Secretary Dale Carroll in a news release. “Compared to the same time last year, nearly all of the state’s counties have a lower unemployment rate. We will continue our statewide effort between employers, our workforce partners and our employment service offices to put people back to work.”
Beaufort County was one that experienced a drop. The 11.3 percent unemployment rate from June dipped to 11.2 percent in July. Where that is not a staggering month-to-month change, it is a move in a positive direction. A more noteworthy statistic might be the decline from July of 2011 when Beaufort County unemployment was at 12.1 percent. Ninety-four of the 100 North Carolina counties have shown improvement in the last year.
The speed of the economic recovery might not be up to our expectations, but the statistics from North Carolina and Beaufort County show that we are gradually getting back to work.