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BURLINGTON — The Alamance County economy kept pumping out paychecks for area breadwinners through the end of 2022.
The county unemployment rate declined by 0.5 percentage point from November to 3.2% in December, the state Commerce Department reported Wednesday. The rate also was 3.2% in December 2021.
Alamance County had a labor force of 82,464, with 2,626 people listed as unemployed.
Statewide, unemployment rates decreased in 96 of North Carolina’s 100 counties from November to December while increasing in four, the Commerce Department reported. The four counties with jobless rates that increased from November to December are all in eastern North Carolina.
The number of counties with jobless rates at or below 5% — traditionally an indicator of a healthy local employment market — increased from 84 in November to 90 in December. No counties reported unemployment levels at or above 10%, which serves as an indicator of a struggling job market.
North Carolina added just over 190,000 jobs during 2022, lifting statewide employment to 226,000 more jobs than before the onset of the pandemic in March 2020, the Raleigh-based N.C. Budget & Tax Center said.
But the gains weren’t evenly distributed. The Research Triangle region and Charlotte metropolitan area added more than 110,000 jobs last year, which is nearly 75% of the state’s net job growth for all of 2022. By comparison, no other metropolitan area managed to add 10,000 jobs for the year, the center reported.
The divide in North Carolina after the pandemic is similar to the uneven economic recovery from the Great Recession, said Patrick McHugh, research manager at the N.C. Budget & Tax Center.
“Federal aid and a strong market in general have propelled some city economies ahead, but we’re at risk of replaying our failure to drive a truly statewide recovery,” McHugh said.
