The NC Employment Security Commission released today updated job numbers reflecting labor data for June. The headlines tout the good news about the unemployment rate dropping from 10.4 in May to 10.0 in June.
But a closer look at the data, however, proves the news is not quite so encouraging. The primary reason the unemployment rate dropped from May to June is because about 26,000 people dropped out of the labor force (the “labor force” is a count of people either working or actively seeking work). This means these folks gave up looking for work, and some perhaps having just had their unemployment benefits expire.
In reality, the number of people actually working in the state dropped by more than 5,500.
And comparing year over year numbers, there is an increase in the number of NC jobs of about 45,000 over June 2009. However, 40,200 of those are government jobs, many of which are probably temporary Census workers.
Not exactly signs of a robust recovery.
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