Unemployment ticks up
The number of jobless people rose in Greensboro and High Point in July, largely as a result of layoffs and more people entering the workforce, said economists.
Unemployment rose to 5.4 percent in July from 5.2 percent in June, according to seasonally adjusted figures from the N.C. Employment Security Commission.
Summer months are difficult to measure, said economist Mark Vitner of Wachovia Corp. because large transitions in the labor force. Students and recent graduates enter the workforce while teachers drop out. And many people who lost jobs a couple of years ago who have gone through retraining are also starting to look again.
"My hunch is that we will see employment fall back in the next couple of months as new people are absorbed," said Vitner.
But he said layoffs in traditional industries have affected the numbers as well.
Economist Don Jud, professor emeritus at UNCG, said that the higher number of people employed in the state points to the fact that the economy is adding jobs. But "there are still a lot of underemployed people out there who would like to have a better job," he said.
Due to recent automated spamming attacks on our blogs, we are temporarily requiring commenters to authenticate themselves via TypeKey® before posting comments to any News & Record blog in order to prevent denials of service. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.