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February 4, 2009
Unemployment rate spikes as the national economic
crisis deals a hard blow to the Outer Banks
By SUSAN WEST
The impact might be less obvious than in towns where hundreds of
pink-slipped workers stream out of shuttered plants, but the national
economic crisis is dealing a hard blow to the Outer Banks economy.
In December, the unemployment rate in Dare County hit 12.1 percent,
according to figures released Friday, Jan. 30, by the state Employment
Security Commission.
That rate is a staggering 5 percent higher than the rate one year ago.
(In Hyde County, unemployment rates for December climbed from 7.5 to 11.1 percent.)
Winter is always a slow time for commerce on the Outer Banks, a
welcomed respite when locals reconnect with friends and neighbors after
summer’s busy pace, but the quiet is louder and eerie this year.
Most businesses in the county made it through the height of the tourist
season, months marked by sky-high gasoline prices and new,
court-sanctioned closures of popular fishing areas on the Cape Hatteras
National Seashore, but then took another bruising when the banking and
housing crisis and the tumbling stock market hurt the fall
shoulder-season.
“We had a good summer, but the fall was pretty bad,” said Andy Throne, owner of The Mad Crabber Restaurant in Avon.
Now business owners wonder how the upcoming tourist season will shape
up. Some reports indicate that confirmed reservations for vacation
cottages are running as much as 25 percent behind last year.
The hope is that bookings will increase as the season draws closer, but
every story about an Ohio Valley factory closing or a corporation
downsizing is worrisome because the economic pain trickle-downs to the
Outer Banks and other resort areas.
No one is ready to venture a prediction on how tourism will fare this year.
“I’m going to get ready for the season, and hope customers
show up. It’s too early to say what might happen,”
said Hatteras Island charter-boat captain Mike Warren.
In a county where the number of seasonal, summer jobs has come to
exceed the size of the local labor force, workers aren’t sure
that they won’t see shorter work hours, lower wages, or more
competition for jobs.
Competition for temporary jobs with the state North Carolina Department
of Transportation’s Ferry Division will be more intense.
Gov. Beverly Perdue has asked the Department of Transportation and most
state agencies to cut their budgets by at least 7 percent to help
address an anticipated $3 billion budget shortfall for the fiscal year
starting July 1.
“Part of the budget reduction will come from hiring fewer
temporary employees,” said Jack Cahoon, director of the state
Ferry Division.
Construction workers on Hatteras Island and other communities have been on the front-line of the economic downturn.
“I’d call the overall situation in construction
dire,” said Rick Riopel, owner of Any Angle Construction in
Buxton.
“I’m getting calls daily from accomplished carpenters
looking for any type of work, even cleaning up the yard,” he said.
The demand for construction of new vacation homes is virtually
non-existent, due at least in part to a lock-down on lending by banks,
according to Riopel.
His company, like others on Hatteras Island, is relying on smaller, remodeling jobs.
“Everybody is doing everything they can just to try to maintain,” he said.
Riopel said a huge concern is that the pool of remodeling jobs will dry up before the credit crisis is resolved.
The downturn in housing construction and in the recreational
boatbuilding industry has increased the competition for jobs on
commercial fishing boats, according to Hatteras fisherman Jeff Oden.
“Working on the deck of a good vessel is one of the more lucrative jobs available,” he said.
Tilman Gray, owner of Avon Seafood, said small fishing businesses are
able to change more readily to economic conditions than some other
industries.
“Another thing that makes our industry different is that
we’re food producers, and people can do without a lot of things
but they can’t go without food,” he said.
Gray noted that in the past Outer Bankers always returned to fishing when construction work ran out.
“That versatility in making a living was the way people here
survived, but government regulations have changed that,” he said,
adding that government could create thousands of jobs if fishing
regulations were less restrictive.
In December unemployment rates increased in 97 of North
Carolina’s 100 counties, and the state rate reached 8.7 percent,
the highest jobless rate since 1983.
The rate in North Carolina was well above the national rate of 7.2 percent.
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