The level of economic activity in the Piedmont Triad dropped in November by 0.3 percent, according to a new survey from UNC-Greensboro.
The News-Record reports The Triad Business Index, produced by G. Donald Jud, professor emeritus and research fellow in the Center for Business and Economic Research, measures a variety of indicators including employment, retail sales and home sales.
Although the region’s overall business activity has increased by 1.3 percent in the past year, it has dropped by 0.6 percent since July, suggesting that this region is still struggling to recover from the recession.
An example is that unemployment figures for November, which were not adjusted for possible seasonal variations, increased in the Greensboro-High Point region from 9.7 percent to 10.5 percent, which shows that workers here are not finding jobs.
Another key indicator for spending and employment, residential building permits, was up 1 percent in November, but that doesn’t come close to erasing the 23 percent decline in housing construction in the past year. Construction employment is down 5.8 percent in the past year.