Unemployment Rates Decrease In Hickory Metro
Unemployment Rates Decrease In Hickory Metro
April 14, 2021
Unemployment rates fell across the Hickory Metro area and across most of the state of North Carolina, according to the latest update. The North Carolina Department of Commerce Labor and Economic Analysis Division released the numbers last week, they reflect jobless rates in February.
Catawba County’s unemployment rate is 5.4 percent, down from 5.8 in the January report. Alexander County has an unemployment rate of 4.7 percent, down from 5.1 in the previous update. Burke County shows a 5.3 percent jobless rate, down from 5.7. Caldwell County’s unemployment rate is 5.9 percent, down from 6.2 in January.
Oil and gas facilities managed by the BLM Pinedale Field Office (H/t Bryan Nealy, BLM Wyoming/Flickr, Creative Commons)
The state economy recovered slightly from the COVID-19 pandemic at the end of 2020, but the labor market remained disconcerting moving into 2021, the Wyoming Economic Analysis Division (EAD) says.
According to a March 2021 EAD report, statewide unemployment decreased to 5.3 percent, approximately 1.5 percent lower than the national unemployment rate in the fourth and final quarter of 2020 (4Q2020).
Personal income across the state grew by 0.4 percent while the statewide retail and wholesale trade industries reported a combined increase in taxable sales of 20.3 percent thanks to robust activities in wind power projects, per the report.
It is no surprise that the pandemic s effects are still being felt one year later, but what is shocking is that small business owners did not think they would be in the same predicament they were in last year when it comes to hiring and staffing potential employees.
By the end of 2018, the unemployment rate in Onslow County sat at an even 5%. As 2019 came to a close, the rate dropped to 3.9% where it hovered around that number for the first few months of 2020. Once the pandemic hit, that number skyrocketed to 12.9% for April and May, before gradually decreasing throughout the remainder of the year.
◆ Economist see positive numbers amidst pandemic.
Lincoln County did not follow the trend in dipping sales tax revenues in the final quarter of 2020. In fact, the exact opposite is true with Lincoln leading the state with an increase of 56 percent, according to a recent economic summary released by the Wyoming Department of Administration & Information. That percentage more than doubled Teton County, which increased a second best 20.8 percent in the fourth quarter when compared to the final quarter of 2019. Interestingly enough, neighboring Sublette county saw a drop of 49.9 percent in taxable sales, the second largest decrease in the state only to Niobrara county’s 70 percent decrease.
by Lawrence Bivins April 7, 2021 .
Editor’s note: Lawrence Bivins is managing director of the North Carolina Economic Development Association, a TechWire partner. Reach him at lawrence@nceda.org
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