Surry Business

The 12-county Piedmont Triad area’s unemployment rate dropped from 4.9 percent in August to 4.7 percent in September.

“Numbers since January and over the past year continue to remain positive,” said Harry Payne Jr., chairman of the N.C. Employment Security Commission.

In the total labor force of 822,313, about 38,500 people filed unemployment claims in September.

Joblessness rates fell in eight Piedmont Triad counties. Caswell and Montgomery counties continued to indicate unemployment rates higher than 6 percent. Stokes County had the lowest unemployment rate: 4.0 percent.
The statewide unemployment rate in September was 4.9 percent, up 0.1 percent from August.County-by-county September and August unemployment rates for the Piedmont Triad region are:

• Alamance: 4.8 percent, down from 5.1 percent
• Caswell: 6.1 percent, down from 6.8 percent
• Davidson: 5.3 percent, down from 5.5 percent
• Davie: 4.7 percent, down from 4.9 percent
• Forsyth: 4.3 percent, down from 4.5 percent
• Guilford: 4.5 percent, down from 4.8 percent
• Montgomery: 6.3 percent, up from 6.2 percent
• Randolph: 4.3 percent, down from 4.6 percent
• Rockingham: 5.4 percent, down from 5.7 percent
• Stokes: 4 percent, up from 3.9 percent
• Surry: 5.8 percent, up from 5.6 percent
• Yadkin: 4.2 percent, up from 4.1 percent