From Staff Reports

For yet another month, the Buncombe County unemployment rate for  February ranked lowest in North Carolina, figures released on April 5 by the state Department of Commerce showed.

Buncombe’s 3.9 percent rate was an improvement over its 4.3 percent for January and its 4.4 percent rate for the same month in 2016.

Likewise, jobless rates declined in February in every Western North Carolina county — and the February rates were lower than the previous month and the same month last year.

The largest jump in employment in the Asheville metropolitan area (comprising Buncombe, Haywood, Henderson and Madison counties) was in the health care sector, which tallied an increase of 1,400 workers — 3.9 percent — this February over the same month last year.  Also lifting the local economy were the leisure and hospitality sector, which added 800 workers — for a 3.1  percent increase — in February over the the same period in 2016.