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In addition to questions around hiring difficulties and barriers for applicants, the 2026 Employer Needs Survey asks employers that attempted to hire for entry-level positions to rate the importance of various credentials. Work experience and demonstrated skills topped the list in every sector: 56% of employers overall rated them important or very important. As for formal credentials, Health Care as well as Education and Child Care employers valued them more often than overall employers, while Manufacturing employers tended to value them less often.

NCcareers, the state’s career exploration system, has added several new tools and features to help users better understand occupations, explore careers, and connect career information to employers. With approximately 1 million North Carolina-based users accessing the site annually and more than 100,000 Career Development Plans created, these updates strengthen NCcareers’ role as a statewide hub for career and workforce exploration.

North Carolina employed 461,467 manufacturing workers in 2025, the most of any state in the Southeast and eighth in the nation. Those jobs paid more than the statewide average. They also produced $111.5 billion in output and nearly all of the state's exports. For economic developers and job seekers, manufacturing remains one of North Carolina's largest sources of above average wages. And in 2025, manufacturing was the top industry producer for announced new jobs for the state - accounting for 75% of the state's announced new jobs for new and expanded projects.

From Asheville to Wilmington, every North Carolina metro area gained workers on net from 2022 to 2024 through interstate job switching – workers who left a stable job in another state and landed one in an NC metro, or vice versa.Those gains are helping fuel the state's job growth, with North Carolina's net gain of ~75,100 workers equal to about a quarter of the ~295,000 jobs it added. Of that net gain, 93% came from beyond NC's four neighboring states, led among metro areas by New York.

In recognition of Manufacturing Month, this article uses data from the Common Follow-up System (CFS) to examine two decades of trends in employment in the Manufacturing sector among bachelor’s degree graduates from UNC System institutions. The analysis follows three graduating cohorts (2003, 2013, 2023) to identify the bachelor’s degree programs with the highest share of graduates working in the Manufacturing sector two years after graduation. While the overall share of UNC System bachelor’s degree graduates employed in Manufacturing remained stable, the programs most connected to

In recognition of Manufacturing Month, this article uses data from the Common Follow-up System (CFS) to examine which North Carolina Community College System (NCCCS) programs are most closely associated with employment in the Manufacturing sector. The analysis follows three cohorts of NCCCS graduates (2003, 2013, and 2023) to identify the certificate and associate degree programs with the highest shares of graduates working in the Manufacturing sector.

In this edition of NC Economy Watch, we see how the Western North Carolina economy is faring two years after the impact of Hurricane Helene. Although the region has made considerable progress, the situation remains much as it was at the time of our last update: some measures of business activity returned to pre-hurricane levels in the months immediately following the storm, but employment has been much slower to recover, and the region continues to suffer from a downturn in tourism.

Over 460,000 North Carolinians work in the Manufacturing sector, and advanced manufacturing was identified as a key workforce sector in the Governor’s Council on Workforce and Apprenticeships’ Strategies to Advance North Carolina’s Workforce Development Progress. In recognition of Manufacturing Month, this article uses data from the Common Follow-up System (CFS) to examine the educational and employment outcomes of graduating Manufacturing Career and Technical Education (CTE) Concentrators from North Carolina’s public high schools.

In this edition of NC Economy Watch, we unpack what’s going on with inflation in 2026. Following a few years of steady progress, inflation spiked again this year, driven primarily by an energy price shock from the conflict in the Middle East. Tariffs and the artificial intelligence (A.I.) buildout have added further pressure, complicating the path to normal price growth.

The 2026 UNC System Workforce Alignment Report ranked accountants and auditors as among the top 25 bachelor’s-level occupations by projected new net job growth between 2024 and 2034. This is supported by data from LEAD’s Occupational Projections, which estimates an increase of 3,181 accounting and auditing positions during this period. Using two decades of data from the Common Follow-up System (CFS), this article examines trends in Accounting bachelor’s degree production, employment in two key sectors, and average wages over time.