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NC Unemployment Rate Drops Again

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.

Gurnal Scott joined North Carolina Public Radio in March 2012 after several stops in radio and television. After graduating from the College of Charleston in his South Carolina hometown, he began his career in radio there. He started as a sports reporter at News/Talk Radio WTMA and won five Sportscaster of the Year awards. In 1997, Gurnal moved on to television as general assignment reporter and weekend anchor for WCSC-TV in Charleston. He anchored the market's top-rated weekend newscasts until leaving Charleston for Memphis, TN in 2002. Gurnal worked at WPTY-TV for two years before returning to his roots in radio. He joined the staff of Memphis' NewsRadio 600 WREC in 2004 eventually rising to News Director. In 2006, Raleigh news radio station WPTF came calling and he became the station's chief correspondent. Gurnal’s reporting has been honored by the South Carolina Broadcasters Association, the North Carolina Associated Press, and the Radio Television Digital News Association of the Carolinas.
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