North Carolina’s unemployment rate fell slightly in March to 9.7 percent due in part to the addition of 13,900 nonfarm jobs, the N.C. Employment Security Commission reported Tuesday.
The state’s jobless rate a year ago was 11.3 percent.
However, state data shows that information technology jobs declined by 100 compared to a year ago. That number is different from information compiled for the monthly IT Jobs Report by the North Carolina Technology Association, which shows IT jobs and openings are increasing. (See the latest report here.)
The new state data does say that North Carolina has added a net 600 jobs in computer and electronics manufacturing.
The decline was the first for North Carolina since the rate slipped to 9.8 percent last November from 9.9 percent in October and 10 percent in September.
The national unemployment rate last month was 8.8 percent,
Nonfarm jobs have increased for three straight months, the ESC noted.
The numbers were seasonally adjusted were based on a survey of employers. Seasonally adjusted numbers are considered more accurate than those gathered from household surveys,
The number of people working increased overall by 13,402 to just over 4.04 million. The number of people not working fell by 1,949 to 434,996.
Most jobs were added in business services with more than 6,000.
County-by-county and metropolitan area statistics will be released on April 27.
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