Vance County’s unemployment rate in March fell to the lowest level since December 2000, according to preliminary figures released Friday by the state Employment Security Commission.
The jobless rate was 8.7 percent, down from an even 10 percent in the revised numbers for February. The rate was 9.9 percent in March 2004, when Vance broke a string of 27 months of double-digit unemployment.
March proved to be a good month for jobs across the state. Of the 100 counties, 97 posted lower jobless rates, and the statewide rate fell from 5.9 percent to 5.2 percent if, as with the county numbers, the figures are not seasonally adjusted.
Seasonal adjustments smooth out the peaks and valleys of unemployment rates by accounting for predictable changes, such as the increase in construction work as the weather heats up in March. The state never applies such adjustments to the county numbers. The seasonally adjusted state rate for March also was 5.2 percent, down from 5.4 percent in February.
Among Vance’s immediate neighbors, the jobless rate fell from 7.7 percent in February to 7 percent in March in Warren County, from 6.7 percent to 6 percent in Granville County, and from 5.4 percent to 4.8 percent in Franklin County. Statewide, the rate was lowest in Orange County at 3.3 percent and highest in Tyrrell County at 11.7 percent.
Vance’s 8.7 percent rate was the ninth-highest in the state.
“March was a good month for North Carolina,” ESC Chairman Harry Payne Jr. said in a news release. “We are beginning to see the effects of job announcements throughout the state. Our focus will continue to be helping those who are looking for jobs and to help employers find those potential employees.”
March was not good, however, for Henderson employees of Custom Molders, most of whom lost their jobs in the middle of the month. Because of the timing of the ESC job survey, those job losses likely won’t show up in Vance’s unemployment rate until the April numbers are released May 27.
Until then, Vance residents can take heart in some milestones of improvement.
In addition to having its lowest unemployment rate since December 2000, when 8.1 percent of the work force lacked jobs, Vance also had fewer than 1,700 people on the jobless rolls for the first time since December 2000, when 1,606 of 19,945 were unemployed. The ESC counted 1,697 people unemployed out of a Vance work force of 19,421 in March.
In February, 1,964 of 19,557 Vance workers were unemployed, according to the ESC. In March 2004, 1,922 of 19,458 workers were unemployed.
The ESC overhauled its measurement and analysis of the state’s labor markets this year to be more accurate, to fit census trends and to align better with the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. The changes not only improved Vance’s labor picture, knocking the county from the state’s unemployment throne, but they forced a re-evaluation of unemployment numbers going back to 1990.
Vance was one of the few counties to benefit substantially from the ESC’s change in procedures. The state now does a better job of recognizing Vance residents who fill jobs in other counties, particularly in the employment-rich Triangle area.
Under the new view of Vance unemployment, 2003 was the peak of local misery, thanks to the shutdown of Harriet & Henderson Yarns, the loss of hundreds of other textile jobs and the lingering impact of the closure of the J.P. Taylor Tobacco plant the previous year.
The yearlong unemployment average in Vance in 2003 was 13.3 percent, and the rate peaked at 15.1 percent in June that year, when the number of unemployed people hit a record 3,003.
But people apparently adjusted well in 2004, when the yearlong unemployment average fell 3.5 percentage points to 9.8 percent. Some of the improvement came from service jobs at new restaurants in Henderson, but a lot of it came from people’s willingness to look beyond the county lines for work.
The annual rate of 9.8 percent was better than the 12.2 percent average of 2002 and the 10.6 percent of 2001 but fell short of the 9 percent of 2000.
In another positive sign, the unemployment rate has been lower each month this year than in the same month last year. And the March unemployment rate hasn’t been lower since 2000, when it was 6.1 percent and only 1,197 people were out of work.
It was mid-2000 when a national recession hit, and the economic effects multiplied in Vance the next several years as the tobacco and textile industries nose-dived and as the nation dealt with the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Looking back to the 1990s, Vance went more than 3 1/2 years without posting a single month of double-digit unemployment, and the annual average was below 7 percent in 1997, 1998 and 1999. But those days, and those jobs, are gone.subprime loans sinking sensation for aloan trust agf programs rrsploan afsc amortizationadvance loaninfo payday domain cashalabama loan origanator$100,000 loansloans $30,000 personalcredit bad 10,000 loan businessauto loan rates 2004502 direct loan rural program housing