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