Press Releases

The North Carolina Department of Commerce is now accepting applications from local workforce development boards for special grants designed to help jobseekers and businesses in today’s tight labor market. The department’s Workforce Solutions division is making the grants available, from federal funds allocated to North Carolina through the American Rescue Plan Act.

ABEC, Inc., a global leader providing engineered process solutions and services for biotech manufacturing will create 251 jobs in Wilson County, Governor Roy Cooper announced today. The company will invest $11 million in the City of Wilson to establish another ISO-7 cleanroom and increase single-use disposable container (DC) manufacturing capacity for its Custom Single Run (CSR®) biomanufacturing solutions.

The state’s seasonally adjusted July 2022 unemployment rate was 3.4 percent, remaining unchanged from June’s revised rate. The national rate decreased 0.1 of a percentage point to 3.5 percent. North Carolina’s unemployment rate decreased 1.5 percentage points from a year ago. The number of people employed increased 14,216 over the month to 4,943,277 and increased 213,715 over the year. The number of people unemployed decreased 558 over the month to 171,711 and decreased 70,710 over the year.

The North Carolina Rural Infrastructure Authority (RIA) has approved 15 grant requests to local governments totaling $4,278,230, Governor Roy Cooper announced today. The requests include commitments to create a total of 526 jobs, 324 of which were previously announced. The public investment in these projects will attract more than $200.9 million in private investment.    

Visitor spending in North Carolina for 2021, with numbers broken out at the county level. All 100 counties saw increases.

Asbury Graphite of North Carolina, will create 22 new jobs in Robeson County, Governor Roy Cooper announced today. The company will invest $16.9 million as part of a capacity expansion project at its Lumberton operation.   “Asbury Graphite is yet another company that sees the value of doing business in our state,” said Governor Cooper. "When they could expand anywhere in the world, Asbury selected Robeson County, North Carolina because they believe in our quality of life, our infrastructure and our workforce.”

Five more television and film projects are approved to receive North Carolina Film and Entertainment Grant funds, Governor Roy Cooper announced today. Altogether, these new projects are expected to produce direct in-state spending of more than $61 million while creating more than 2,400 job opportunities in the state. 

Today, Governor Roy Cooper joined Dominion Energy CEO Robert M. Blue to observe Dominion Energy wind turbines off the coast of Virginia and addressed the third North Carolina Taskforce for Offshore Wind Economic Resource Strategies (NC TOWERS) meeting in Elizabeth City.

Unemployment rates (not seasonally adjusted) increased in 98 of North Carolina’s counties in June and decreased in two. Edgecombe County had the highest unemployment rate at 8.0 percent while Orange and Buncombe Counties each had the lowest at 3.3 percent. All fifteen of the state’s metro areas experienced rate increases. Among the metro areas, Rocky Mount had the highest rate at 6.5 percent while Asheville and Durham-Chapel Hill each had the lowest at 3.4 percent. The June not seasonally adjusted statewide rate was 4.1 percent.

Today, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper joined U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina M. Raimondo to announce that the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) is awarding a $23.7 million American Rescue Plan Good Jobs Challenge grant to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University to create STEPs4GROWTH, a clean energy workforce training program.