RALEIGH – North Carolina’s labor market is steady, despite recent job posting data from the North Carolina Technology Association as well as WRAL TechWire’s Jobs Report showing job openings in the state and in the Triangle are decreasing.

The latest labor market data from the North Carolina Department of Commerce shows that the state’s unemployment rate remained unchanged in June 2022 compared to May 2022.

According to the latest figures, released today, the state’s unemployment rate is 3.4%, outpacing the national unemployment rate, which remained at 3.6% in June 2022.

Still, the data shows that 1,767 more people in North Carolina were unemployed in June than in May, but there are 74,565 fewer North Carolinians unemployed than in June 2021.  And there are some signs in the labor market that North Carolina’s job market boom may be over.

Yet the statewide economy remains among the strongest in the nation, Dante DeAntonio, a director of economic research at Moody’s Analytics, told WRAL TechWire this week.

NC economy is strong – ‘way ahead of the nation,’ declares a Moody’s Analytics economist

But more residents of the Tar Heel State joined the workforce in June, with the latest data showing an increase in the number of people employed in North Carolina of 12,675.

Overall, the seasonally-adjusted total nonfarm payroll employment increased to 4,754,100 in June 2022, led by gains in education and health services (5,700 jobs), professional and business services (5,000 jobs), and trade, transportation, and utilities (3,700).

Is the job market boom over?

Construction industry adding jobs in NC

Notably, the state also added 3,000 jobs in construction in June, according to today’s data release.

Earlier this year, Dr. Gerald Cohen, the chief economist at the Kenan Institute, said that the labor market nationally was showing a “meaningful deceleration in construction jobs.”

Cohen added, at the time, that this was, to some degree, what the Federal Reserve intended, adding “I wouldn’t be surprised to see declines in the construction sector” in future months.  But even though the construction industry shed jobs nationally in April, it added jobs in both May and in June, including in North Carolina.

Still, nationally, there are many real estate markets experiencing a dramatic cooldown, a Redfin analysis found earlier this month.  But housing markets in Raleigh and across the Triangle remain steady, Taylor Marr, the deputy chief economist at Redfin, told WRAL TechWire this week.

That’s because in-migration to the state and the region continue, and new construction homes continue to be built to address the challenges of the region’s housing markets.  Further, future economic growth is still widely anticipated, including from VinFast’s planned $4 billion automotive manufacturing plant in Chatham County, that WRAL News reporter Matt Talhelm reported could be changing the county’s housing market already.

Chatham County will juggle job growth, growing pains as VinFast builds $4 billion SUV plant