What We Know So Far About the Employment Impact of Hurricane Helene

This morning, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics released statewide unemployment and state- and metro-level job growth data for October 2024. Today’s release is the first batch of official statistics covering the impact of Hurricane Helene on North Carolina’s economy.

This article describes what we know so far about the employment impact of Helene—or, at least, what we think we know, given the preliminary nature of these statistics. We also summarize what we don’t yet know about the impact of Helene and leave readers with some things to keep in mind as we continue to sort through this emerging evidence.

Stay tuned for additional updates in the weeks ahead as more data are released and we get a more comprehensive picture of Helene’s impact on our state.

What (we think) we know so far

Preliminary estimates indicate that North Carolina lost a net total of 5,500 jobs in October, representing 0.1% of overall employment in our state. This decline was more than accounted for by losses in the Asheville metropolitan area, which shed 8,200 jobs in October, representing 4.0% of all jobs in the region.

Meanwhile, North Carolina’s unemployment rate decreased from 3.8% in September to 3.7% in October, and the number of unemployed individuals declined 1,103 over the month.

What we don’t know yet

While today’s numbers offer a preliminary estimate of Helene’s employment impact, these estimates are limited to statewide unemployment and job growth at the statewide and metro-area level. Regional and county-level unemployment estimates will be released next Wednesday, November 27. Job growth numbers for rural (non-metro) counties won’t be available until June 2025.

It’s important to emphasize that today’s numbers are preliminary. Economic statistics are typically revised in the months and years after they’re initially released as additional information comes in. This month’s data collection process was disrupted by the hurricane, making it even more important than usual for us to wait until the final numbers are published before arriving at any firm conclusions about Helene’s impact.

To the extent that we can derive any meaning from today’s numbers, they only shed light on Helene’s short-term impact. The longer-term impact could take months to unfold; storm damage might complicate rebuilding efforts, and some businesses that lost revenue during the hurricane and its aftermath could eventually decide to close their doors permanently. Then again, if recent history is any guide, the economies of Helene-affected areas could recover surprisingly quickly. For example, the job losses that followed Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and Hurricane Florence in 2018 were short-lived, and communities impacted by these storms saw only temporary downturns in their local labor markets.

Some things to keep in mind

While the numbers released today can help us understand the impact of Helene on employment levels, they are insufficient to depict the scale of the storm’s disruption on affected businesses and workers. If a business closed its doors temporarily, but continued to pay its employees during the October pay period, then the jobs on that employer’s payroll would continue to be counted in the official numbers despite the temporary disruption. If an individual was prevented from getting to work or saw a reduction in work hours, but still had a job, then they would be counted as employed, not unemployed, in the unemployment rate calculation.

These numbers also fail to capture much of the individual-level impact of the hurricane. While top-line employment estimates can tell us the overall number of jobs and workers in the affected regions, they can’t tell us which businesses are employing those workers, or which workers are filling those jobs. Shocks like natural disasters can induce “churn” in local labor markets—some businesses might close, and some residents might move away, but it’s possible that new businesses and new residents could take their place. We’ll need more data and more time to determine the extent to which this type of churn is happening in communities affected by Helene.   

Finally, the labor market is but one part of the overall economy; we’re still waiting for evidence on the impact of Helene on consumer spending, business investment, and other types of economic activity. And, of course, the economy isn’t the only aspect of life affected by the storm. Helene touched hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians, and we may continue to grapple with its ecological, social, and public health impacts for generations to come. In the meantime, measuring Helene’s labor market impact is a small but important first step toward quantifying the overall cost of the hurricane and setting the stage for post-hurricane recovery.