Economic Trends

Population Information

Rowan County’s estimated population is 135,000 people from growth of about 0.67% annually since 2000. Approximately 20% of the residents live in the City of Salisbury, 13% in the other towns and the rest in unincorporated sections of the County.

Sources: US Census Bureau, 2000 Census and ESRI projections

Employment Information

Employment in Rowan is more concentrated in Manufacturing than the rest of North Carolina and the Charlotte region.
About 14% of workers in North Carolina and 16% in the Charlotte area work in Manufacturing, while in Rowan, about 21% of the workers are employed in Manufacturing. This disproportion increases when comparing compensation from employment with about 30% of Rowan’s employee compensation coming from Manufacturing while in North Carolina and the Charlotte area only 20% of compensation is from Manufacturing.

Source: US Bureau of Economic Analysis

Workforce Information

Employment continues to increase in Rowan County and a subsequent decrease in unemployment is occurring. The total size of resident's participating in the Labor Force has shown consistent annual growth. Additionally in the past year, the percent of those in the Labor Force that are employed has increased. The rate of those in Rowan County that are part of the labor force and are not employed (Unemployment Rate) was at 5.4% a year ago compared to 4.8% in May. This 0.6% decrease is the same as the State's change.

Year	Period	In Labor Force	Employment	Unemployment	Rowan County Rate	NC Rate
2000	Annual	65,487	62,530	2,957	4.5	3.7
2001	Annual	65,155	60,847	4,308	6.6	5.6
2002	Annual	65,309	61,140	4,169	6.4	6.6
2003	Annual	68,177	63,030	5,147	7.5	6.4
2004	Annual	67,415	62,459	4,956	7.4	5.5
2005	May	67,314	63,688	3,626	5.4	5.2
2005	Jun	66,935	63,008	3,927	5.9	5.6
2005	Jul	67,603	63,722	3,881	5.7	5.6
2005	Aug	67,830	64,061	3,769	5.6	5.2
2005	Sep	67,945	64,631	3,314	4.9	4.8
2005	Oct	68,593	65,218	3,375	4.9	4.9
2005	Nov	68,319	64,822	3,497	5.1	5.0
2005	Dec	67,872	64,597	3,275	4.8	4.7
2005	Annual	67,515	63,806	3,709	5.5	5.2
2006	Jan	67,712	64,547	3,165	4.7	4.8
2006	Feb	67,546	64,017	3,529	5.2	5.1
2006	Mar	67,776	64,702	3,074	4.5	4.5
2006	Apr	67,641	64,822	2,819	4.2	4.1
2006	May	68,114	64,840	3,274	4.8	4.6

Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics

Journey to Work

The majority of people that live in Rowan, work in Rowan. Of those in the labor force, about 41,000 or 68% work in Rowan County. Most of the rest (19,160 or 32%) work in other North Carolina Counties while only 418 or 1% work outside of North Carolina. Approximately 14,650 people commute into Rowan County from another County for work for a net out-commute of approximately -5,000. The average commute is 23 minutes.

Worked in NC	59,881	99%
Worked in Rowan	40,721	68%
Worked outside Rowan	19,160	32%
Worked outside NC	418	1%
Lived outside Rowan, Worked in Rowan	14655
Net Commute into Rowan	-4923

Source: US Census Bureau, 2000 Census

Unemployment Insurance (UI) Benefits

	Rowan	NC
May	$939,388	$64,598,717
YTD	$4,131,339	$437,605,613

Average UI Tax Rate for NC Businesses: 1.70%

Source: Employment Security Commission of NC