Hurricane Helene has taken a devastating toll on the region’s economy, with Buncombe County’s unemployment rate soaring — from the state’s lowest to its highest in October.
This week, the North Carolina Department of Commerce announced some relief: an extension to Jan. 7 to apply for disaster unemployment assistance.
At 8.8% unemployment, the county’s job losses are not as severe as during the coronavirus pandemic, but experts say the recovery is more complicated.
Vicki Meath, executive director of the Asheville-based nonprofit Just Economics, witnessed the struggles of Buncombe County residents every day.
“I know people who have gotten denied disaster unemployment,” Meath said in an interview last week. “I know people whose FEMA applications — even for the $750 — were denied. I know people whose out-of-state landlord applied for the $750 and didn't offer the tenant actually living there the actual amount, and there's only one [application allowed] per household.”
Even when aid does come, the long wait often has devastating consequences of its own.
“I know people that waited the entire month of October for their disaster unemployment application to go through and were getting eviction notices come November 1st,” Meath said.
The numbers tell only part of the story. In some cases, for instance, residents lost their identification or other important paperwork in the storm, or are grappling with the mental health impact of surviving a natural disaster.
“Trauma impacts your brain's ability to think and to do things correctly,” Meath said. “So, we have a whole bunch of people that are working in trauma-brain trying to fill out applications for a whole number of things and then also trying to determine, ‘What do I eat today?’ or ‘How do I keep my kids warm at night?’”
A ‘multi-year recovery’
People looking for help have a little more time to complete that paperwork as the state Department of Commerce announced an extension of its deadline for individuals impacted by Helene to apply for disaster unemployment assistance. Applicants from 39 counties and the Qualla Boundary now have until January 7.
For those approved, unemployment benefits will amount to a maximum of $600 a week, paid weekly for up to 26 weeks.
In October, nearly 18,000 people were unemployed in the Asheville metro area, which includes Buncombe, Henderson, Haywood and Madison counties, state data show.
That equals an unemployment rate of 7.3% — more than double before Helene.
Clark Duncan, executive director of the Economic Development Coalition for Asheville-Buncombe County, said the figure stands in stark contrast to how the rest of the country fared in October.
“For context, that represents the single largest year-over-year growth in unemployment of all 389 metro areas in the United States,” Duncan said. “Technically, we were tied with Kokomo, Indiana. I don't know what happened in Kokomo. But yeah, that's not a title you aspire to.”
Early data shows about half of the local jobs lost in October were in the leisure and hospitality industry centered in Asheville.
Duncan said the loss is all the more stunning because low unemployment has been the Asheville metro area’s “historical claim to fame.”
“Leading up into the pandemic, we had the lowest unemployment in the state month-over-month, uninterrupted, for five years,” he said. “And we've held that ranking for most of the post-pandemic period, as well. And that has a lot to do with the reach of our labor shed and the mix of employment here in the area.”
Buncombe and neighboring counties have been through tough times in the past.
After the Great Recession in 2007 and 2008, it took the Asheville metro area nearly seven years to make up for the jobs that were lost. After the pandemic hit in 2020, it took nearly three years for the labor market to recover.
“Now, I think it's important to say those were actually also much larger job losses compared to what we know to be true today,” Duncan said. “But in the same breath, we know it's early, right? We have one month's worth of data. We don't know yet if we've hit the height of our unemployment numbers and are starting to recover. So, that's a question that time will tell.”
Duncan said the region should expect “not just a multi-month, but a multi-year recovery.”
Rebuilding housing is top of mind
So far, the state has paid out nearly $38 million in disaster-related unemployment benefits for more than 28,000 claims.
About half of those claims are in Buncombe County, according to Nathan Ramsey, executive director of the Land of Sky Regional Council, a regional government planning organization.
"That's partly because the Asheville metro has a large percentage of the population in the counties affected by Hurricane Helene,” Ramsey said. “And also, the challenges with restoring water — so it wasn't only businesses that had flood damage or property damage due to the storm.”
It is a unique situation. The storm didn’t just destroy people’s livelihoods; in many instances, it also took their homes.
Ramsey says the issues of restoring housing and providing a lifeline to small businesses are “what keeps me up at night.”
“Disaster experts have shared with me that oftentimes the most challenging part of a disaster is not the initial response. ... The real challenge is going to be the next year,” he said.
Unlike the pandemic, which was global, Helene is a localized disaster. That means some residents may ultimately choose to move away to an area unaffected by the storm.
“As a community, that's the thing that should scare us, because if we lose our workforce, then that's going to hurt all of us long term,” Ramsey said. “So, we need to do everything we can as a community to keep those folks here.”
Further clarity on the extent of the crisis may come next Friday, when the North Carolina Department of Commerce releases its November unemployment numbers.
Ramsey said his group helped organize two job fairs in recent weeks. More than 130 employers and 1,300 job-seekers turned out.
“And I just want people to know, there are jobs available,” he said. “You know, reach out to your local NC Works career center. There's educational and training assistance available. There's a lot of support available to help people at this time. And hopefully, in the next month or two, there’ll be even more support as additional resources come to our community.”
