news-record.com

Guilford County’s unemployment rate continued soaring in February, rising to 11 percent from 9.9 percent in January.

In the past year alone, the rate has doubled, with nearly 27,000 people unemployed in the county, compared with about 13,000 a year ago.

The national recession is behind the dramatic increase, which has put the unemployment rate in 83 of the state’s 100 counties at 10 percent or more. That’s up from 67 counties in January. The rates are not adjusted for seasonal variations.

Rockingham County’s unemployment rate hit 14.2 percent and Randolph County’s rate was 12.2 percent.

Such smaller, less urban counties seem to be bearing the brunt of unemployment. Forsyth County, the Triad’s second most urban county, has a 10 percent unemployment rate, up from 8.8 percent in January.

“Obviously, these are figures that are representing a great deal of pain in the urban core counties,” said Keith Debbage, a UNCG geography professor who studies the city economy. “But the silver lining is we’re holding up better than our friends in the countryside.”

And when the economy does recover, he said, urban communities like Guilford are likely to feel the upturn sooner.

Still, “it’s going to take quite some time to put these folks back on the payroll,” Debbage said.

Joan Smith of Greensboro hopes that’s not the case for her, but then, she never thought she’d be unemployed. Since Dec. 1, when the 61-year-old lost her job as an administrative assistant for a marketing and real estate company, she’s sent out more than 100 resumes.

That effort produced three interviews, but nothing more.

“I wasn’t being picky,” Smith said of her search. “I just thought I would always be able to get a job.”

Now, Smith has enrolled in a Quick Jobs program at GTCC, where she’s studying health insurance billing.

So is Regina Vance, 51, of Archdale. She was laid off by a Greensboro check- printing company Dec. 31.

“Kind of lost” is how Vance describes the experience. “(I’m) just having to start over again.”

As the unemployment rate has soared, people like Smith and Vance have chosen retraining at GTCC, where enrollment in the Quick Jobs program has jumped by 63 percent this spring.

“We actually braced ourselves,” said Lisa Cozart, assistant coordinator for the occupational training program. “We knew that this was coming.”

For Mike Williams, 61, of Madison, it’s been almost two years since he was laid off as a manager at Unifi. He and his wife, who still works for the textile company, live off her paycheck and, since his severance ran out, his unemployment.

He’s sent out resumes for various management jobs in Rockingham County, but had no luck.

“They don’t even interview, contact you or anything,” Williams said. “They’re laying off instead of hiring.”

Across the state, unemployment rates vary greatly, from a low of 6.5 percent in Orange County to a high of 17.9 percent in Graham County.

Debbage said local governments in Forsyth and Guilford, where about 44,000 unemployed workers live, won’t be much help as the recession squeezes their budgets.

“You’ve got this collision of forces ... when you’ve got a great need for local services,” he said.

Beyond that, Guilford County and Greensboro have political and staff turmoil at the worst possible time, he said.

“For our community, it doesn’t help that we don’t have a permanent county or city manager in place at this very, very crucial time,” Debbage said. “That exacerbates the problem. It’s the worst possible time to have instability in our local government leadership.”

Staff writer Jonnelle Davis contributed to this report.

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

Contact Donald W. Patterson at 373-7027 or don.patterson@news-record.com