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Economic conditions in Guilford County aren’t getting bad as fast as they once did.

That’s the word from the Brookings Institution, a non-partisan Washington think-tank that has been monitoring economic activity in the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan markets, including Greensboro and High Point.

 Economic indicators are slightly better here in the second quarter than in the first, but overall, the co-author of the report says, “they still aren’t all that great.”

Alan Berube, a senior fellow at Brookings, said Tuesday the nation’s economy continued to weaken in April, May and June, but added that it was no longer in free fall.

His report examines areas such as employment, production of goods and services and housing prices.

Berube said the news for Greensboro and High Point mirrored numerous other metros: “You lost jobs; you lost output, but those losses were smaller than they were in the first quarter.”

Overall, the report said, Greensboro and Charlotte continue to rank among the second-weakest group of 20 metros in the country; Raleigh came in among the second-strongest group.

“The report attests to the economic pain suffered in North Carolina’s largest cities during this recession,” Don Jud, professor emeritus at UNCG’s Bryan School of Business and Finance, said in an e-mail.

Jud called the percentage change in employment the report’s most important indicator.

“Here,” Jud said, “the North Carolina metros all show declines.”

Greensboro/High Point recorded the steepest drop, with an employment decline of 7.4 percent since its peak in the fourth quarter of 2006.

Charlotte reported an employment decline of 6.4 percent and Raleigh, a decline of 3.8 percent.

The one bright spot for Greensboro/High Point continues to be housing.

The report said home prices here jumped 2.4 percent from the second quarter of 2008 to the same period this year. That’s enough of a boost to rank the area 20th nationally in the percent of change.

“The housing numbers are keeping your overall outlook from being worse than it is,” Berube said. “The employment and output numbers are pretty grim.”

The Brookings report ranked metro areas by categories, but did not provide overall rankings as it did in its first quarter report, which came out in late June.

At that time, Raleigh ranked 32nd nationally; Charlotte, 59th; and Greensboro 73rd.

Typically, observers say, metro areas have not suffered as deeply in past recessions as have rural areas. That’s all changed this time around.

“It’s a recession with a widespread impact,” said John Quinterno, principal at South By North Strategies in Chapel Hill. “The pace of decline is slowing, but at the same time, we have a long way to go.” Quinterno says North Carolina will not see significant job growth until employment rises in the state’s largest metro areas.

In Greensboro/High Point, for example, Berube said he expects unemployment here to continue to rise until the middle of next year.

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