Topics Related to Economic Trend

In this edition of NC Economy Watch, we show how our economy is running on “two tracks”, with many households and businesses experiencing the benefits of an expanding economy while others are coming under increasing pressure from high prices, high interest rates, and a weakening labor market.

In this edition of NC Economy Watch, we analyze trends in North Carolina’s labor force participation rate. Labor force participation has been trending downward in North Carolina and nationwide for decades, driven primarily by shifting demographics. While the participation rate for younger workers in North Carolina has increased in recent years, the overall statewide labor force participation rate is likely to continue declining because our population is getting older, and older people are more likely to be retired.

Explore the potential impact of artificial intelligence on North Carolina's business practices through our analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. This blog examines AI adoption rates, applications, and employment trends, offering insights into AI's potential effects on industry and workforce needs.

Across the United States, a persistent surge in business applications has been a surprising feature of the COVID-era economy. Has this upswing in entrepreneurial activity been evident in North Carolina as well? This article explores the U.S. Census Bureau’s Business Formation Statistics (BFS) data to describe the trend in application activity across North Carolina and its counties.

In this edition of NC Economy Watch, we review some of 2023’s key economic trends and speculate on how these trends might evolve in the year to come. Slower economic growth and lower price inflation have led to widespread expectation that interest rates will finally start to ease in 2024. We’ll be watching for signs of how far interest rates might fall and whether our economy will experience a soft landing, a hard landing, or no landing at all in the months ahead.

In this edition of NC Economy Watch, we provide some context for the recent manufacturing slowdown. The manufacturing sector experienced turbulence during the past year and has declined as a share of the North Carolina economy since the 1980s, but a nationwide surge of new investment in manufacturing facilities offers hope for a potential renaissance in the years to come.

This is the third article in LEAD’s recent Manufacturing series, which explores North Carolina’s Industry 4.0 assets.

LEAD recently released the NC Racial Equity Dashboard that examines demographic and economic data by race and ethnicity statewide, as well as by county for select measures. While this blog highlights three key findings from the dashboard to get you started, we encourage you to investigate the data on your own to uncover further valuable insights.

In our last edition of NC Economy Watch, we described some of the ways in which our economy has changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this edition, we examine aspects of our economy that have not changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. For the most part, people are still working in the same industries; the labor market is tightening at the same pace; and the rise of e-commerce is where we’d expect it to be based on trends that preceded the pandemic.

In this edition of NC Economy Watch, we examine some of the ways our economy has changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the rise of remote work and a resurgence of entrepreneurship.