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NC unemployment rate drops to 9.7 percent in Feb.

334 days ago

(AP:RALEIGH, N.C.) North Carolina had more people drawing paychecks and fewer collecting unemployment benefits in February as the unemployment rate fell slightly to 9.7 percent, down from 9.8 percent in January, the state's Employment Security Commission reported Friday.

February continued a trend as both the number of workers added to payrolls and the number of people looking for work grew. The number of employed workers climbed by 5,500 and the number of unemployed dropped by 4,300.

More than 435,000 people remain on North Carolina's unemployment rolls. That number is down by 85,000 workers in the past year. The state unemployment rate in February 2010 was 11.4 percent.

"We are showing signs of slow but steady progress, with job gains in February and over the year," ESC chairwoman Lynn R. Holmes said. "We remain committed to assisting out-of-work citizens with training and services to get them through these hard times and back to work."

North Carolina has lost 292,500 jobs since the national recession began in Dec. 2007.

Both the national and North Carolina's unemployment rate were 9.8 percent in November, but North Carolina's jobless rate has since hovered around the same level while the national rate dropped to 8.9 percent.

In the past year, the number of North Carolina jobs in professional and business services grew by 5 percent while governments shed 11 percent of their workers.

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