Local jobless rate declines

Jobs might be slowly returning to Chapel Hill.

Chapel Hill’s unemployment rate was 5.2 percent in September, down from a year high of 5.8 percent in June and July, according to the latest estimates by the N.C. Employment Security Commission.

“5.2 percent is about where the national economy sits where it operates prosperously,” economics professor Ralph Byrns said.

Chapel Hill’s numbers are better than the 9.8 percent national rate and the 10.8 percent North Carolina unemployment rate.

Because the town mostly has service-sector jobs such as teaching and research, it typically has a low unemployment percentage compared to the state and national rates, said Pamela Rich, the manager of the Employment Security Commission’s Chapel Hill branch.

Basil Aljuaithen, a 2009 DePaul University graduate, is looking for a job as a business analyst in Chapel Hill or Chicago.

“The supply of jobs is much less than demand,” he said. “Students are looking for jobs, paid or unpaid.”

Lauren Coker, regional manager for staffing firm Robert Half International, said there are signs the local job market is improving.

“We are seeing companies hiring on a temporary basis because they need extra help to cover their higher workload,” Coker said.

She said companies favor hiring temporary employees for fear that their work ethic won’t last, and they might have reason to be cautious.

The improvement in the unemployment numbers from July to September is typical of year?to?year trends in Chapel Hill. In 2008, the unemployment rate declined 1.3 percentage points during the two-month period.

Byrns said students might be making the job market more competitive in the summer, driving down the unemployment rate as the school year starts up again.

In September 2008, the unemployment rate in Chapel Hill was 3.3 percent, almost two percentage points better than this year’s rate.

The University, one of the town’s biggest employers, hired 64 new employees — not counting professors or administrators — this September compared to 107 in the same month last year.

Rich said she has seen only a steady decline in the job market.

“I’ve not seen anything perk up,” she said, referring to the town’s employment sectors.

Aljuaithen wasn’t optimistic about finding a job in the United States, but he has planned ahead.

“I have a job waiting for me back home in Saudi Arabia,” he said.

 

Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.