RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – The U.S. Department of Labor reported last week that nationwide unemployment has now hit the lowest point since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020. Around 498,000 Americans filed unemployment claims in the last week of April, down by 92,000 from the previous week. North Carolina saw new claims drop by about 3,440 in the same period.
But that doesn’t mean the pandemic recession is over. North Carolina is still tens of thousands of jobs short of where the state was in March 2020.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ newly released April jobs report shows a significant decline in hiring. According to the report, U.S. businesses added 266,000 new jobs in April, a notable drop from March’s revised total of 770,000. April’s unemployment rate remains at 6.1%, a tiny change from 6% in March.
As we highlighted in a post last week, WRAL TechWire’s exclusive Triangle Startup Guide is always growing with new resources for local startups. Whether you’re looking for VC or angel funding sources, local coworking spaces, member organizations or free networking events, the Triangle Startup Guide has all the resources you need to take your venture to the next level.
Every week, we add new resources to keep content fresh and relevant. Here’s what’s new this week:
In the COVID resources section of the guide, we added these updates:
We added a link to this explainer we published last week on the latest round of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funding.