The Triad economy kept growing slowly during April, with the jobless rate slipping into single digits for the first time in seven months.
The rate was at 9.7 percent, compared with 10 percent in March, the N.C. Employment Security Commission reported Friday.
Similar improvements were seen in the Winston-Salem metropolitan statistical area — with the jobless rate down 0.3 percentage point to 9.1 percent and Forsyth County down 0.1 point to 9.1 percent.
Perhaps more encouraging is that the rate's decline since February appears to have been caused more by an increase in hiring rather than more people exiting the job market, commission officials said.
When people who are unemployed stop looking for work, the commission does not count them as jobless, which can lower the unemployment rate.
The commission listed 3,093 more people as employed in the Triad during April, on top of 8,583 more in March and 2,588 more in February.
There were 1,753 fewer people listed as unemployed in April, 1,990 fewer people in March and 3,187 fewer in February.
"I believe these to be positive numbers, with the labor force up incrementally," said Archie Hicks, the manager of the commission's office in Winston-Salem.
"Whether or not this will be a sustained trend remains to be seen, but at least it is a start, recognizing we have a long way to go to get back to where we were three years ago."
Another promising economic sign for the Triad: None of the commission's 10 employment sectors, including government, had an overall loss of jobs.
The Winston-Salem MSA — consisting of Davie, Forsyth, Stokes and Yadkin counties — had a net gain of 3,100 jobs in April. The sector with the biggest increase was education and health services at 700 new jobs, along with 600 each in the trade, transportation and utilities sector, leisure and hospitality, and professional and business services.
All 14 counties in the Triad and Northwest North Carolina had a jobless-rate decrease. Ashe County had the largest drop, at 1.7 percentage points to 10.6 percent, followed by Yadkin County's 1-point fall to 9.2 percent.
John Silvia, the chief economist for Wells Fargo Securities, said the state's economy is "gradually beginning to build some momentum."
"It will continue to face sluggish job growth, with some sectors of the economy performing better than others. The uneven job growth across industries will result in uneven personal-income growth across industry sectors."
Silvia's latest report on the state's economy, released Thursday, echoed much of the study released Wednesday by a state workforce commission and the N.C. Commerce Department. Both cited the pivotal role education and job training are playing for successful and unsuccessful job seekers.
Silvia said the best job opportunities are in the leisure and hospitality, finance, and trade and transportation sectors, while manufacturing job openings remain few.
"The hard reality is that even in the areas where manufacturing employment recovers, the jobs that return will have very different job-skill requirements than in the past," Silvia said.
"The new post-recession factory worker is one with technical skills, and in some cases, an engineering background to effectively operate these new retooled factories."
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