Employment

What does the ‘Great Resignation’ mean for Charlotte?

More people than ever are voluntarily leaving their jobs. This phenomenon, known as the Great Resignation, is happening in nearly every employment sector and across a broad range of income levels. Fueled by the pandemic, changes in how we work, increasing work demands, other opportunities and more, workers of all types are looking for a […]

Poverty suburbanization and job access: A new study tests ‘spatial mismatch’

Does where you live — and what jobs you have access to — influence whether you work, and how much you earn? The long-held “spatial mismatch” theory posits that inner city unemployment and poverty has been driven in large part by the increasing physical separation of inner city residents from job opportunities, as suburbs boomed […]

How gig work is changing during the pandemic

Kevin Ross runs a pet care service from his home in Indian Trail through Rover.com. By mid-March, as cases of COVID-19 were rapidly rising in the US, his typically steady stream of clients began to dwindle. When states began issuing stay-at-home orders, many of his clients started working from home or cutting out travel. That’s […]

Who are Charlotte-Mecklenburg immigrants?

On Feb. 27, the Charlotte Mayor’s Immigrant Integration Task Force met for the first time. Around the same time, Charlotte Chamber President Bob Morgan signed a letter by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Partnership for a New American Economy to House Speaker John Boehner, urging him to move immigration reform forward this year. […]

For our future: Make Charlotte a welcoming city

The last five years have been among the most challenging in the nearly 250-year history of Charlotte. The Great Recession erased the mythology that our community was invulnerable to the vicissitudes of national economic fortunes. Home construction, property values, business investment, and community philanthropy plunged downward at rates not seen since the Depression. Unemployment rates […]

For our future: Make Charlotte a welcoming city

The last five years have been among the most challenging in the nearly 250-year history of Charlotte. The Great Recession erased the mythology that our community was invulnerable to the vicissitudes of national economic fortunes. Home construction, property values, business investment, and community philanthropy plunged downward at rates not seen since the Depression. Unemployment rates […]

Advanced manufacturing: Economic lifeline?

“In 1965, if you had a good back and a good alarm clock, you could make a good living in Milwaukee,” Mayor Tom Barrett told a recent Raleigh conference, because of the strength, at the time, of that city’s manufacturing sector. Although rural Stanly County is very different, that Milwaukee attitude was also the prevailing […]

Charlotte economic outlook improves for first quarter

The first quarter 2013 Charlotte Business Confidence Index report, released Jan. 2, shows Mecklenburg County business leaders’ optimism about economic prospects in the first quarter 2013 improved compared to their expectations for the fourth quarter 2012. The overall index value of 54.2, an increase of 1.8 points compared to the fourth quarter 2012, represents improved […]

Voters’ economic outlook isn’t pushing them to the polls

Are people who are unemployed or financially distressed more likely to vote than those who have jobs or are financially sound? According to data going back to the 1992 general election, they are not. Time will tell whether the job losses and damaged personal finances of the Great Recession featured in this election campaign will […]