RALIEGH -- Shoppers and business owners went into the weekend with the first bit of good economic news in a long time.
With unemployment numbers reported Friday at a three-year low, the economy seems to be in a slight upswing. The national unemployment rate declined by 0.2 percentage points in January to 8.3 percent, falling by .8 percentage points since August 2011.
In North Carolina, unemployment dropped .1 percentage points to 9.9 percent in December, according to the N.C. Division of Employment Security. The Triangle is doing better than the state at large, with 7.7 percent unemployment in Wake County in December, which is actually an increase of .2 percentage points since November. January numbers have not been released.
Regardless of the promising numbers and the steady business in Raleigh's commercial centers, people out on Super Bowl Sunday remained hesitant to take the good news as a cue to open their wallets.
"From what I hear in the news, yes things are improving," said Kevin Howard as he left Target with nothing but the necessities. "But I'm in the middle. I've got relatives in an economically depressed area, but my peers here are comfortable."
In Vance County, his family is mostly under-employed but Howard said he's hopeful things will turn around.
People across the country are thinking along the same lines, hesitant to jump to overly positive conclusions. At Peace China, a pan-Asian restaurant at Seaboard Station, owner Wei Zhao said business is improving. But he hasn't hired a new employee in five months, and he wishes he could pay his staff more than $8 to $12 an hour.
In the same shopping center, Tyler's Restaurant & Taproom hired nearly 100 new employees after opening Dec. 15 as the latest addition to the local brew pub with locations in Apex, Durham and Carrboro. Neighbors say the taproom is picking up business for the downtown village, fed by the historic Mordecai and Oakwood neighborhoods.
"We expect business to keep improving," said Raleigh manager Trevor Matthes.
Zhao agrees that owners in Seaboard are up to the challenge of braving whatever the economy brings their way, but he's not overly optimistic.
"We just keep working hard. You can't just be excited," Zhao said. "We could lose everything in a heartbeat."
Down at North Hills, even Target isn't actively hiring yet. Though they're accepting applications, assistant store manager Dennis McCarter said, they hold them for when they lose employees.
And those in Raleigh's service industry who already have jobs aren't holding their breaths about losing them.
"We're not worried," said Nikki Blanton, a server at Peace China who's been there for a year. "We just think about how we can find more help."
Aside from one man who bought a whole case of wine at Seaboard Wine and Tasting Bar down the strip from Peace China, people were leaving area stores with necessities instead of luxury goods.
"We can't just go out and get whatever you want," said Michelle Pridgen on her way into Target with her daughter.
Pridgen talked with her husband recently about what might happen if he gets laid off. The construction firm he works for in Research Triangle Park isn't doing well.
"It would be a struggle ... but we've gone through a budget and we're doing fine," Pridgen said. "We're trying to get everything paid off, and we're preparing for what could happen."
Upstairs at the ground-level part of the outdoor shopping mall, Kim Davis moved away from a wall sculpture at Beyond Blue Interiors, a high-end furniture store. She decided against the silver spoons and forks twisted into human silhouettes that brought her inside the shop; she'd rather save up for a vacation with her two daughters.
"I love unique things, but they cost more than I'm willing to spend," Davis said. "I'm looking mostly at necessities. I sway toward things I need rather than things my eyes love."
Still skeptical
The furniture store's co-owner, Susan LeFera, isn't convinced the economy is rebounding. The store came to North Hills a year and a half ago after closing its 5-year-old location in a Cary strip mall.
"The foot traffic here is much better (here)," LeFera said, referencing the nearby condos. "People are browsing more, more smalls (trinkets) go out."
She said that if they've survived this long, she thinks the store can make it through.
"Yesterday was slow," Fefera said. "You see a pickup in the economy, but you don't see an immediate upturn here."
