The Lead Feed

While national labor force participation has steadily declined from a high of 67 percent in the late 1990s to less than 63 percent in December, a surprising trend shows participation rates among the United States’ poorest households rising over the last decade.

Which pays more on average: teaching elementary school or patrolling the streets as a police officer? Every day, 4.2 million North Carolinians go to work in their chosen profession. Which occupations pay more than average wages and which pay less? Analyzing data from LEAD’s Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) program and occupational employment projections helps us to find out.

Although January 2015 labor force and employment estimates for North Carolina will not be released until March 17 due to annual processing and benchmarking of the data, North Carolina's economy is heading into 2015 on a strong, upward trend.

You may have heard that suburban growth is on the decline as people flock to urban areas, but this may not be so. Recent research challenges this and other urban legends.

The rate at which workers employed in North Carolina are hired or separate from their jobs (“turnover”) has decreased over the past 20 years. To what extent is this occurring across the state’s 15 metro areas? And is there a connection between metro-area turnover rates and wage growth?

What's the buzz among leading economists in the New Year?  Find out through highlights of this year's annual meeting of the American Economic Association.

As contracted employment has become a larger part of the nation’s economy over the past few years, questions about the industries supplying these jobs have gained some traction. In this post, we’ll take a look at the growth of contract work in North Carolina and the wages these jobs command.

North Carolina appears to have a mismatch between its unemployed job seekers and the jobs available to them. This article demonstrates how the long-term unemployed are contributing to this “gap” and continuing to weigh on our state’s economic recovery.

It is relatively easy to understand labor force trends among the school- and retirement-age populations. But why are we seeing declining labor force participation among persons in their prime working years? This article attempts to explain why fewer workers age 25 to 54 are participating in the labor force.

Every year we hear about how big of a player North Carolina is in the national Christmas tree business, but how big of an impact does North Carolina really have?  Turns out it’s a pretty big impact and one North Carolina county leads the way nationally in Christmas tree production.

Young people in North Carolina tend to find work at the same rate as older job seekers. However, young workers are much less likely to hang onto their jobs than older workers. This article introduces a theoretical model that many labor economists use to explain this disparity, shedding light on how the workforce development system can address a root cause of youth unemployment.

It's the most comprehensive data set available for monthly employment and quarterly wages of industries, especially at the local level — which is why you should know about the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages program.

The early 21st century has seen increases in the percentage of employed North Carolinians whose working hours vary from week to week. This article digs a little deeper to find out who these workers are and discusses the potential implications for North Carolina’s labor market

We use economic statistics every day in order to gauge the state of the marketplace. However, the reality depicted by many of these data points is obscured by the uncertainty inherent in data estimation. This article focuses on sources of error in the unemployment rate and explains how readers should interpret these data.