NC unemployment rate up to 6.5 percent and labor force drops .3, Labor force participation rate plummets 4.1 percent since Jan 2009, How are dropouts paying bills?

“11.4%: What the U.S. unemployment rate would be if labor force participation were back to January 2008 levels.” …James Pethokoukis, American Enterprise Institute, June 2013

“Nearly half of U.S. companies are reluctant to hire full-time employees because of the ACA. One in five firms indicates they are likely to hire fewer employees, and another one in 10 may lay off current employees in response to the law.

Other firms will shift toward part-time workers. More than 40 percent of CFOs say their companies will consider switching some jobs to less than 30 hours per week or targeting part-time workers for future employment.”…Duke University Fuqua School of Business December 11, 2013

“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”…George Orwell, “1984″

I rarely watch News 2 News out of Greensboro, NC. Yesterday, at a family member’s house I heard Julie Luck of News 2 describe the recent news about the NC unemployment rate for July. I was reminded of the Valley Girl speak of years ago.

The News Record did a little better.

“North Carolina’s unemployment rate inched higher for July as the state’s labor force declined by nearly 15,000 over the course of a month, state officials said Monday.

The jobless rate increased by 0.1 percentage points to 6.5 percent in July after being flat for two months, according to a report by the Commerce Department. North Carolina’s unemployment rate was higher than the national rate of 6.2 percent.”
“”The number of employed decreased almost 20,000, when it’s seasonally adjusted, which is quite a bit,” said Kurt, an associate professor of economics at Elon University.

Still, Kurt noted the numbers look better than they did a year ago when the unemployment rate was 1.6 percentage points higher. Total private sector jobs have grown by about 94,000 since July 2013.

“When you compare it year to year, it’s not a bad report,” he said. “Overall, the last year has been good for North Carolina.””

Read more:

http://www.news-record.com/news/n-c-jobless-rate-inches-up-to-percent-for-july/article_16f57002-26fc-11e4-a89d-001a4bcf6878.html

From above:

“Overall, the last year has been good for North Carolina.”

Really?

The labor force participation dropped 1 percent in the past year.

It dropped .3 percent the past month.

The labor force participation rate in NC plummeted 4.1 percent since January 2009.