North Carolina Posts 0 Net Job Growth in July as Annual Gain Slows to 1%

Q: Despite a sudden halt in job growth, why are North Carolina workers secretly taking home more real wealth than before?

North Carolina workers are, on average, taking home more real wealth because pay and income have kept rising faster than inflation even as headline job growth has stalled. The key point in the July slowdown is that it was a pause in net hiring, not a collapse in the labor market. North Carolina still has low unemployment, job growth over the past decade well above the national rate, and heavy job churn: firms are constantly cutting some positions and adding others. In late 2025 alone, businesses eliminated more than 400,000 jobs but created nearly 450,000, a pattern that tends to shift workers toward newer, often better-paying roles. That churn has supported stronger earnings. Average weekly wages in North Carolina rose about 18% in real terms over the past decade, and personal income per resident increased about 20%. In the first quarter of 2026, average hourly pay reached $34.77, up 3.6% from a year earlier. County data also show wages outpaced inflation in most of the state, even in some places where employment fell. Workers’ purchasing power is also helped by North Carolina’s lower cost of living relative to many states, which narrows the gap with national wage averages after adjusting for prices. Real wealth, in other words, is improving not because there are suddenly more jobs every month, but because the jobs being created and retained are generating more inflation-adjusted income for many households.

3 articles · Updated · StarNewsOnline.com · Sep 12

North Carolina recorded no net job growth in July, and employers reported 3,000 fewer workers on payrolls than in May.
The year-over-year job growth rate slowed to 1%, below the state's typical pre-pandemic 1.5% to 2% pace, reflecting a broader national cooling in labor-force growth.
At 1%, North Carolina still outpaced the U.S. average of 0.2% and most neighboring states, according to the report's comparison.
Over the past decade, the state posted 17.3% employment growth versus 9.9% nationally, alongside an 18% inflation-adjusted rise in weekly wages and a 20% real gain in per-capita personal income.