Unemployment Rate Near Record Low

If you're looking for a job, Lincoln County is a great place to look.

Lincoln County's unemployment rate in April was 2.7% according to the North Carolina Dept. of Commerce. That was down from 3.1% in March, and very close to the record low of 2.3% in December 1998. The record high, by the way, was 14.7% in January 2010 during the 2008-2012 recession. It is the 6th lowest unemployment rate among all 100 North Carolina counties.

Catawba County had the 23rd lowest rate in the state: 2.9%. Gaston County's unemployment rate in April was 3.1%. Cleveland County's rate was 3.3%. The highest rate in the state was in Scotland County: 6.8%. The lowest was 2.4% in Buncombe County.

98 of the state's 100 counties saw a slight decrease in their unemployment rate in April compared to March. Statewide, the unemployment rate in April was 3.1%.

Anthony Simpson, who heads up the NCWorks center in Lincolnton told us NCWorks reported over 1800 job openings for the month of April. This number includes jobs that are not only posted in NCWorks by staff and employers but also from job boards such as Monster or Indeed. Included as well are jobs posted on company websites. Simpson said, "NCWorks spiders out and pulls all these jobs into one location to make job search much easier for job seekers. Job seekers can come to the NCWorks Career Center on N. Aspen Street and search listings of over a hundred job openings daily."

CLICK HERE to see the county-by-county rates for NC