The Triangle Economy Remains Strong

I am pleased that there is good news around Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill on the employment front.

I have come to believe that media's unquenchable thirst for sensational headlines is partly to blame for economic woes and the stress we all feel.  It is a strength of our open society that we have a free press, but when the first 12 minutes of local news is murders, car crashes and horrific weather (in Iowa or Kansas) I just have to turn it off.  On the national news level we also incessantly hear about the worst cases of unemployment in America, bankruptcies and despair.  How can we be confident and take risks when we have all this bad news?

The Durham Herald-Sun had a commentary today (Unemployment's Bite Lighter Here) about being blessed to live in The Triangle of North Carolina.  I agree.  While the average unemployment rate across the country exceeds 10%, and even Charlotte is over 12%, the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill areas have unemployment of "only" 7.6%.  While historically high for this area (I believe usually around 4.5%), this better than average rate shows that our diverse jobs market, including major research universities, clean industry and high-tech give us the diversity not to be smacked when one industry experiences difficulty (like auto in Michigan and banks in Charlotte).  Good for us.

I have lived here 30, plus years and continue to be impressed with the quality of life and -- thank goodness -- the robustness of our local economy.