The worsening unemployment rate isn't really cause for concern, because it's triggered by a growing population that includes more job seekers, said Mark Vitner, an economist with Wachovia Securities in Charlotte.

The Triangle is on track to add 33,000 jobs this year, the largest gain since the late 1990s, according to Vitner.

"Raleigh is one of the few markets where we're seeing job growth accelerate," he said.

Jobs in the Triangle, which haven't been adjusted for seasonal fluctuations, rose to 812,640 in September, an increase of 4,195 from August.

Job growth has been especially strong in the business and professional services, information technology and biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors, Vitner said.

The state unemployment rate in September was 4.9 percent, while the U.S. jobless rate was 4.6 percent.

Local unemployment numbers were released Friday by the N.C. Employment Security Commission. That data has been adjusted for seasonal fluctuations by Wachovia.

The unemployment rate in the Raleigh-Cary metropolitan statistical area rose from 3.5 percent to 3.6 percent; in the Durham area, it climbed from 3.8 percent to 4.0 percent.

Vitner expects the Triangle to continue to outperform the national economy. Expansions such as Fidelity Investments, which announced in August that it would create 2,000 local jobs over the next three years, and Credit Suisse, which said in April that it would hire 400 more workers at its Research Triangle Park site, "should give us some momentum," Vitner said.

Vitner anticipates that the national economy will be "excruciatingly slow" in the next six to nine months, driven by a slowdown in housing construction and automobile manufacturing. But the Triangle will be somewhat insulated because its housing hasn't been overbuilt, and it's not an auto manufacturing hub.

Even so, Vitner said that he wouldn't be surprised if the Triangle unemployment rate rises another few tenths of a percentage point over the next few months.