NCBioType: Sunny Reports Shine On NC Job Creation

The North Carolina Biotechnology Center has been working for about 30 years to create jobs in the life sciences statewide.

So we hope you realize by now why we’ve been humbly fist-pumping our way through, and past, the recession.

From 2001 through 2010, the most recent data show, North Carolina’s 23.5 percent life-science jobs growth has led the nation.

That contrasts with a national growth for the segment of 6.4 percent. And an actual decline of 2.8 percent in North Carolina’s private-sector employment.

We’re going to release some other interesting data next Wednesday, February 13, in “2012 Evidence and Opportunity: Biotechnology Impacts in North Carolina,” the latest in the biennial updates on our sandbox contents from the Battelle Technology Partnership Practice.

It’s timely, then, that we just got a nice tip from Blake Derrick, business development representative with Kelly Scientific Resources in Morrisville. Blake, an active NCBiotech Jobs Network participant, posted a link to another jobs report on the network’s LinkedIn site.

That report is especially good news if you’re one of the thousands of unemployed North Carolinians. If that’s you, your view of the famous Carolina sunshine might look as if it’s been from the bottom of a rain barrel lately.

Blake tipped us to a report published by Staffing Industry Analysts, a Crain Communications-owned global advisor on “contingent work,” SIA’s term for temporary staffing.

The report shows that despite our 9.2 percent unemployment rate still worse than the 7.8 percent national rate, North Carolina now leads the nation in the number of jobs added during the past three, six and 12 months. We’re even number three in jobs added as a percent of population.

And hard on the heels of gloom from big banking layoffs around greater Charlotte, these Staffing Industry folks are now putting that region among the top four job-growth metros in the nation.

In fact, the Southeast in general seems to be rising again. The top states for employment growth in terms of volume of jobs are:

1. North Carolina
2. Florida
3. Texas
4. Georgia
5. Tennessee

 The top states for growth in terms of percent of jobs added are:

1. Utah
2. Nevada
3. North Carolina
4. South Carolina
5. Georgia

Talk about sunshine, huh? The Southeast is looking brighter by the day. Especially as bliizzard conditions power across the North.