Early holiday hiring by retailers led to the biggest one-month decline in the state's jobless rate in 1½ years, the N.C. Commerce Department said Tuesday.
The rate dropped 0.4 percentage points to 10 percent in November.
However, because of the seasonal nature of the hiring, economists cautioned that the jobless rate will probably go back up in the new year.
The department's Labor and Economic Analysis division reported a net gain of 5,400 jobs in the trade, transportation and utilities sector. The private sector as a whole gained 4,600 jobs.
"All the headline numbers went in the right direction," said Michael Walden, an economics professor at N.C. State University. "The unemployment rate was down, and both household and payroll surveys of jobs were up.
"The one caveat is the November and December employment numbers are always impacted positively by the holiday retail season. We may see the same increase in December, and then we have the reverse job losses occurring in January.
"So it may be February or March before we can be confident that any observed trends are for real," Walden said.
The division reported a net gain of 2,200 jobs in the education and health services sector. There was a loss of 3,700 jobs in the professional and business services sector and 1,000 in financial activities.
There also was a loss of 800 local and state government jobs during November. Since November 2010, there has been a decline of 11,200 local and state government jobs.
Economists and political analysts are paying close attention to the government workforce levels, considering that many agencies and school systems cut jobs because of reduced funding from the legislature for the 2011-12 budget year.
Another reason for the jobless rate decline was that 3,563 fewer North Carolinians were considered in the state workforce compared with October. The number listed as unemployed was down 16,385, while the number considered as employed rose by 12,822 to 4.05 million North Carolinians.
The traditional jobless rate does not include several categories of people, including those who have stopped looking for work, are underemployed for their skills, are able to work full time but can get only part-time work, are receiving severance packages after the elimination of their jobs and those who have exhausted their state and federal unemployment benefits.
A rate compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U6 index, includes those people. The latest update for North Carolina found 17.9 percent of adults were without jobs, compared with 15.6 percent nationally on Nov. 30.
Mark Vitner, senior economist with Wells Fargo Securities LLC, said he was encouraged by the state's net gain of 31,200 private-sector jobs since November 2010.
"North Carolina remains on the slow road to recovery," Vitner said. "We expect hiring to improve in 2012, but only modestly so.
"There is still a great deal of uncertainty present in the economy today, and businesses are just not confident enough to expand all that much until there is improvement in demand" for their products and services.
Vitner said many businesses are likely to put off major expansion plans until after the 2012 presidential election.
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