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In this edition of NC Economy Watch, we provide an update on the financial health of consumers. Rising prices are eating away at the savings households built up during the COVID-19 pandemic, but for now, many consumers still have money to spare, which has important implications for the economy in the year to come.

In December, not seasonally adjusted unemployment rates decreased in 96 of North Carolina's 100 counties.

North Carolina's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate remained unchanged from November’s revised rate of 3.9 percent.

What are the lingering effects of the COVID pandemic and recession? The release of Q2 2022 QCEW data allows us to look at how industry employment has changed two years after the beginning of the pandemic.

For high school graduates, the past few years have been a mix of disruption and uncertainty, calling into question the potential impacts on these graduates’ decisions to pursue employment or higher education. In this article, we use data from the North Carolina Common Follow-up System (CFS) to explore prevalent post-graduation pathways for recent public high school graduates throughout the COVID era. We find that although immediate college-going rates have declined for recent graduates, employment rates have risen due to tight labor market conditions, increasing youth connection in the process.

Welcome to the January 2023 edition of NC Economy Watch: an update on what’s happening in the North Carolina economy and what it means for you, brought to you by the Labor & Economic Analysis Division (LEAD) of the NC Department of Commerce. In this edition, we provide an update on hiring challenges in our state. The labor market has eased slightly in recent months, but hiring conditions remain historically tight, and demographic trends suggest labor shortages may become a routine feature of life during future periods of economic growth.

In November, not seasonally adjusted unemployment rates decreased in 92 of North Carolina's 100 counties.

North Carolina’s elementary and secondary schools have been among the slowest sectors of our state’s economy to return to pre-pandemic employment levels. While many other sectors have struggled to hire and retain workers in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, a shortage of teachers as well as cafeteria workers, bus drivers, and other non-instructional support staff presents a two-fold workforce challenge: a failure to fill these jobs today impacts our ability to prepare our children for the jobs of the future. In this article, we use data from the North Carolina Common Follow-up System (CFS) to demonstrate that an increase in retirements and a gap in the talent pipeline are driving this shortfall in school workers.

North Carolina's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate increased from October’s revised rate of 3.8 percent.

While many sectors have steadily regained employment following the COVID-19 recession, the childcare service workforce continues to face a significant shortfall. In this article, we use data from the North Carolina Common Follow-up System (CFS) to show the shortfall in childcare service employment can be primarily attributed to increased worker outflows among younger childcare workers to other higher-paying industries or out of the workforce altogether.