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In another example of the recession’s severity, Guilford County’s unemployment rate for January reached 9.9 percent, nearly double the rate a year ago, but better than most other counties in the state.

Unemployment figures released Thursday by the N.C. Employment Security Commission show Guilford County’s rate came in just a hair better than 72 other counties with rates of 10 percent or more in January. The statewide rate: 10.3 percent.

Guilford’s rate represents roughly 38,000 workers.

At 8.9 percent, Forsyth County boasted the best unemployment rate in the Piedmont Triad. Rockingham County ranked the worst, at 12.9 percent, accounting for nearly 6,000 workers.

The rates, not adjusted for seasonal variations, understandably show that the worst unemployment rate for the month was in coastal Dare County, at 17.3 percent.

Rockingham County’s rate has ranked among the Piedmont’s highest since the recession began. Workers there have a way of surviving, said Graham Pervier, president of the Rockingham County Partnership for Economic and Tourism Development.

“People tend to be fairly self-reliant, they own their own homes,” Pervier said. “Folks seem to be able to make do. ... They’re earning manufacturing floor incomes and that’s not the kind of income that allows somebody to pick up and move to another part of the country and buy another home. I think they’re the kind of folks that stay put and look for something else in the region, and that has been successful in the past.”

About 25 percent of the county’s 45,000 workers commute to jobs outside Rockingham.

Elsewhere in the Piedmont, Alamance County saw a 10.9 percent unemployment rate; Randolph, 11.1 percent; and Davidson, 12.1 percent.

The state said three business categories led the state for initial unemployment insurance claims in January: textile mill products, furniture and fixtures, and construction.

A movement of jobs to other countries has caused massive declines in textile and furniture jobs for more than a decade. But the recession has put added pressure on those industries.

“My sense would be that it’s more of the general economic circumstances as opposed to general textile restructuring,” said Pat Danahy, president and chief executive officer of the Greensboro Partnership economic development group. “All the numbers show that there’s significant impact from the recession on manufacturing. Our percentages of manufacturing in terms of workforce are dropping but we still have that significant manufacturing impact in the Triad.”

“When you hit a bad patch like this, there are jobs to be lost,” said Andrew Brod, director of the Center for Business & Economic Research at UNCG. “All manufacturing industries get hit hard during recessions. At the same time, recessions have a way of accelerating trends that are already going on. The most likely explanation is that this is a combination — a great deal of it is cyclical, bound to the recession, and some of it is related to the ongoing trend.”

Contact Richard M. Barron at 373-7371 or richard.barron@news-record.com