Hickory, N.C., made its name in the 20th century with furniture and hosiery. Some of that manufacturing has disappeared as industries moved overseas, but new ones have sprung up, like fiber optic cable manufacturing and a Google server farm in nearby Lenoir. Overall, the four-county metro area, which includes Morganton, saw its August unemployment rate decline from 14.9 percent last year to 12.6 percent this year. Other growing sectors include government, education, health care, and professional and business services.
Some of this improvement in North Carolina is a myth, because many discouraged workers have dropped out of the labor force and are no longer counted as unemployed, says Jason Jolley, a business adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Still, more than half of the improvement in Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton is new jobs, rather than a decline in the labor force.
