The Lead Feed

Moving from one state to another within the United States has decline over the past 20 years, and this may have implications for the North Carolina economy and population.

Women's History Month provides an opportunity to explore U.S. and North Carolina changes in "women's work."

This is part one of The State of NC Broadband Series, which addresses broadband adoption rates in general.  The Southeast is not fairing as well as other parts of the United States, and North Carolina's counties have varying degrees of broadband adoption. 

Newly-released data revisions show that North Carolina’s unemployment rate and labor force participation rate are trending upward as we head into 2017.  This article explains what labor market watchers can learn from these new data and provides some helpful tips for how to avoid getting caught off-guard by future data revisions.

In honor of African-American History Month, we wanted to provide the top 5 interesting facts based on current and historical statistics for African-Americans and African-American workers in North Carolina.

North Carolina’s economy ranks as the 10th largest in the county at just under $439 million in 2015. The state seems poised to continue growing, as its growth currently outpaces the national average. This LEAD Feed article explores what GDP measures, why it is important, and examines the state’s GDP from several angles.

Which of North Carolina’s regions offer the best prospects for jobseekers?  This article assesses the supply and demand for labor within each of North Carolina’s eight “Prosperity Zone” regions.  

The General Assembly recently authorized a new form of crowdfunding in North Carolina, which is intended to help businesses and entrepreneurs better access capital.  In this post, we explain what crowdfunding is and why it matters to our state’s businesses (and investors).

North Carolina continues to be an important state for the military and for veterans.  This entry shares some of the most recent North Carolina statistics on veterans from the American Community Survey.

We may think of crowdfunding as a recent phenomenon, but North Carolinians have been using community-financing to create businesses since the late-1800s. This post highlights a video about what became known as the Cotton Mill Campaign.

North Carolina’s labor force participation rate has declined considerably over the past 16 years.  This article shows how the changing demographics of our population have contributed to this trend.

With October being National Disability Employment Awareness Month, LEAD decided to take a look at the state of disability employment in North Carolina. 

Is it better to focus efforts on acquiring academic credentials or skills if you’re working toward building a good-paying career?  The answer, not surprisingly, is both.  However, when we control for skills, the wage returns for occupations requiring higher education and experience are reduced by anywhere from a third to two-thirds.  This demonstrates that skills are indeed a significant determinant of occupational wages in North Carolina; quantifies the linkage between education and skills; and highlights the importance of skill development at all education levels.  

North Carolina is projected to add over 550,000 jobs by 2024. The following summary analyzes information on employment growth and projections at the state level for the 2014-2024 period and provides key findings by major industry and occupational groups.

It is common to see averages and medians used to analyze wages and compare them between occupations, but those measures don’t tell the whole story in understanding what employees are paid. What about the range of wages among employees who share an occupation? Looking at OES data, we see that workers in some occupational groups are paid within a wide range of wages, while employees in other occupations tend to make relatively similar wages.