North Carolina's unemployment rate is continuing to show improvement.
Gurnal Scott: The state's jobless rate in April fell to 9.4 percent down three-tenths from 9.7 percent in March. This marks four straight months that the rate has gone down. Larry Parker is spokesman for the state Commerce Department's Division of Employment Security. He says while the decrease is good news, it doesn't mean the state's economic recovery is speeding up.
Larry Parker: The number of people unemployed dropped by just over 12,600 while the number of people employed only went up slightly and jobs overall were kind of flat so it was mainly that loss in the labor force that caused the rate to drop down.
Parker says retirement and people giving up the job search can contribute to a drop in the unemployment rate. North Carolina's rate is still above the national jobless rate of 8.1 percent.
