North Carolina's unemployment rate increased slightly to 9-point-6 percent in July. It's the first increase after holding steady for three months at 9-point-4 percent. But Larry Parker with the Division of Employment Security says overall, the numbers indicate things are moving in the right direction.
Larry Parker: Since January of 2010 we're up over 101,000 jobs. That's steady job growth. It's a little bit slower when you look at the overall factor that we lost a little over 300,000 jobs at the height of the recession. But clearly over the last 2.5 years since January of 2010 we've gained a chunk of those jobs back.
The North Carolina unemployment rate remains higher than the national rate of 8-point-3 percent. The state says the private sector added 16-thousand jobs in July, largely in the leisure and hospitality industry. But that was almost entirely offset by losses in government.
