The Triangle jobs picture remained virtually unchanged in October from the previous month as the region's sluggish economy is stuck near its lowest point in nearly two years.
The unemployment rate dipped to 8.7 percent in October from 8.8 percent in September, according to data issued by the N.C. Division of Employment Security and seasonally adjusted by Wells Fargo in Charlotte.
The Triangle's jobless rate is now comparable to what it was in January 2010. Hopes had risen when unemployment began falling last year, dropping as low as 7.6 percent over several months, but the effects have not been not long-lasting.
"We've never really come off the bottom - that's why it still feels like a recession," said James Kleckley, an East Carolina University economist and director of ECU's Bureau of Business Research. "We're moving sideways, pretty much the whole state."
Still, the Triangle remains one of the healthiest job markets in the state, with unemployment well below North Carolina's rate of 10.4 percent in October, and just under the national jobless rate of 9 percent.
About 70,000 people in the Triangle were out of work in October, according to state labor data. Something like normal would be closer to 44,000 unemployed, Wells Fargo economist Mark Vitner said.
The local economy is dragging because core industries that previously had been immune to business cycles - such as government and health care - are shedding jobs or have reduced hiring, Vitner said.
Prospects aren't likely to improve until the national economy makes a breakthrough, lifting the state with it, economists say.
"It's not likely we'll see the pattern changing anytime soon," said John Quinterno, a principal with South by North Strategies, a Chapel Hill policy research group.
According to seasonally adjusted numbers, the Triangle gained 540 jobs in October, mostly in education, health care, professional, business and government. Those gains were negligible and not enough to bring down the unemployment rate. The region has gained just 2,280 jobs so far this year.
During the recession and for months afterward, economists were predicting a speedy recovery. The early optimism was based largely on previous recessions, which seemed to follow a different set of rules. Now, many economists have downsized their expectations and gotten out of the game of predicting economic turnarounds.
"It's a crazy time," Kleckley said. "I've never seen anything like it."
