Bottom Line: Few Jobs Open In Lee County

Economic Statistics Are Not Easy To Write About, and Gordon Anderson's article was a master piece in being journalistic honest while finding a way to report our 14.9% unemployment rate and leave readers with some hope. He wrote, "The rate is the same as April's rate and lower than the February rate of 15.1 percent, an all-time high for Lee County. The county was one of just 18 across the state to not experience an increase from April to May."

Then he balanced that by doing something that is seldom done; he gave the number unemployed-- 4,053. That makes the situation more real for policy makers (or should) and for anyone--if there are any left--who has not been touched by job losses in their household or extended family.  This does not include people who are not eligible for unemployment insurance, who have become discouraged and quit looking, or people looking at re-entering the job force after having their retirement funds decimated in the stock market. He found other "good" news from Edith Edmonds of the Lee County Employment Security Commission. "If it's a small change or no change, I think we're holding our own."  In the article Edmonds said she's seen signs of an improving job market in Lee County.and an increase in jobs opening up."

Click here for an interactive map of interesting information not told by percentages and rankings. If you are familiar with our state's former economic base you will see that counties known for manufacturing have higher rates .

Things are "looking up".  The e-Lee Dispatch has been making estimates of jobs open for months and sharing them with leaders in the public, private, and public sectors.  The method considers a number of sources, but today, we will simply use the 32 jobs publicly listed at the Employment Security Commission's listings for Lee County.  That is one job for every 126 people out of the 4053 people reported.  (The listing is at the end of the post.)  That is about three times the jobs (not including health professions) from a month ago.


It is time to face the outlook for jobs, especially manufacturing jobs, returning.  (See the Job's Crisis section).

Manufacturing Job Trends

This graph displays the percentage of jobs with the search term manufacturing anywhere in the job listing. Since October 2007, the following has occurred:
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The loss of manufacturing jobs is clearly shown by an Apple Computer Facility (a computer server farm) that will cost $1 billion to build and equip but employee only about 50 full-time employees--none of them likely to be manufacturing. Apple announced it was coming to North Carolina and the legislature passed a bill giving the company a state tax credit worth $46 million--about a million dollars per full time employee.  Overall, when all job types (like maintenance) are factored in, the state expects the Apple facility to create up to 250 jobs.  That is an optimistic assessment.  If you have not visited our page on the future of the economy, you may want to click here and review the information.


Date Job Posted Title Location Salary
06/25/2009Mixer Operator 2nd Sanford, NCOther
06/25/2009Pad Operator Sanford, NC$11.50 Hourly
06/25/2009Production Planner Sanford, NCOther
06/24/2009Interm.Employment ConsSanford, NC$15.41 Hourly
06/24/2009Shipping Lead, 2nd Sanford, NCOther
06/19/2009Poultry Worker Sanford, NC$8.00 Hourly
06/19/2009Furniture Assembler Sanford, NC$7.00
06/17/2009Habilitation Tech Sanford, NC$7.50 Hourly
06/17/2009Animal Care Giver Sanford, NC$7.50 Hourly
06/17/2009R&d/Prototype EngineerSanford, NC$30,000.00 Yearly
06/16/2009Accounting Manager Sanford, NCOther
06/16/2009Accounting Manager Sanford, NCOther
06/16/2009Senior Accountant Sanford, NC$40,454.00 Yearly
06/16/2009Internal Medicine Sanford, NCOther
06/16/2009Poultry Worker Sanford, NC$8.00 Hourly
06/16/2009Er Registered Nurse Sanford, NCOther
06/15/2009Emt-P Sanford, NCOther
06/15/2009Team Member Sanford, NC$6.55 Hourly
06/15/2009Shift Managers Sanford, NC$8.00 Hourly
06/15/2009Hvac Service Tech Sanford, NC$10.00
06/11/2009Dir, Clinical Process Sanford, NCOther
06/11/2009Transporter Sanford, NCOther
06/11/2009Pharmacy Intern Sanford, NCOther
06/09/2009Administrative Asst. Sanford, NC$8.00 Hourly
06/09/2009Credit Manager TraineeSanford, NC$455.00 Weekly
06/05/2009Senior Truck Tech Sanford, NCOther
06/05/2009Shift Supervisor Sanford, NCOther
06/05/2009Dir/Cont.Education Sanford, NC$4,124.00 Monthly
06/05/2009Dean/Univtrans/Health Sanford, NC$5,300.00 Monthly
06/03/2009Veterans Serv. OfficerSanford, NC$17,077.00 Yearly
06/02/2009Security Guard Knoxville, TN$9.00 Hourly
05/28/2009Us Army Trainee Sanford, NCOther

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