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10.09.2023
DMJPS is pleased to provide a statewide quarterly economic report with highlights of North Carolina’s fifteen metros for the 2nd Quarter of 2023. These state indicators show sustained and positive growth amidst a continued low unemployment rate.
• In the second quarter of 2023, employment in North Carolina averaged just over 4.9 million, marking a high point for the state. Charlotte metro topped the state’s fifteen metros with a 3.5 percent gain compared to a year earlier.
• North Carolina’s second quarter average unemployment rate was on par with the national rate at 3.4 percent. Asheville metro’s 2.7 percent unemployment rate was the lowest of the state’s metros and the only metro with a second quarter average below three percent.
• Education and Health Services led the state’s major industry employment growth by adding 28,200 jobs in the second quarter when compared to a year earlier.
• The private industry average hourly wage in North Carolina was $30.84 in the second quarter, a slight drop compared to the first quarter in 2023.
• Estimated permit activity for new residential building in North Carolina totaled 25,001 units in the second quarter with a value of $5.8 billion.
• Taxable retail sales in North Carolina totaled $58.8 billion in the second quarter for a 1.7 percent increase compared to a year earlier.
• Special feature, components of population change: of the three primary sources of population change in North Carolina between 2021 and 2022, domestic change accounted for seventy-five percent of the state’s population increase. Only five percent was attributed to natural change, i.e., births over deaths.
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