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Employment growth in the Greensboro-High Point metro area screeched to a halt in July, a further sign that the economy continues to weaken.

“I think everybody says things were slowing in the second quarter,” said Don Jud, professor emeritus at UNCG’s Bryan School of Business and Economics. “July was a bad month all across the country, either flat to down on every statistic you look at.”

From January to July, Jud said, the three-county metro saw employment grow 1.3 percent, but much of that increase came early in the year. In May and June, the growth rate slowed to 0.1 percent and then turned flat last month.

“There was no improvement in the labor market,” Jud said. “The bright side is that (employment) didn’t fall off.”

Using seasonally adjusted figures, Jud put the unemployment rate for the metro area at 10.3 percent, unchanged from June. The metro includes Guilford, Rockingham and Randolph counties.

On Friday, the Employment Security Commission of North Carolina put the area unemployment rate at 10.8 percent, but that number has not been adjusted for seasonal fluctuations.

That compares with an unadjusted area rate of 10.9 percent in June.

“That’s consistent with an under performing, sickly labor market,” said John Quinterno, an analyst with South by North Strategies in Chapel Hill. “10.8 percent is a terrible level anyway you look at it.”

Over the past year, employment in the metro area has grown by 1,100 jobs, or 0.3 percent. But in July, employment dropped by 6,600, or 1.9 percent. Of those, 5,800 were government positions.

“We’re seeing thousands of public sector jobs being lost across the state’s metro areas and only hundreds of private sector jobs replacing them,” Allan Freyer, an analyst with the N.C. Budget & Tax Center, said in a report Friday. “This negative job trade-off is a recipe for increasing unemployment, not economic recovery.”

Since the onset of the recession in December 2007, the state has lost 303,700 jobs, or 7.3 percent of its employment base, and has seen its unadjusted unemployment rate climb from 4.7 percent to 10.3 percent in July.

Last month, the state lost 4,100 more jobs than it gained. “In recent months, North Carolina has witnessed a steady worsening of labor market conditions,” Quinterno wrote. “Most indicators now are trending in the wrong direction and 2011 is on its way to becoming the third straight lost year for working North Carolinians.”

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