Unemployment rate shrinks to 3% across Triangle – here’s who is hiring

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – The U.S. economy received a jolt last Friday when the Department of Labor reported that employers only added 210,000 jobs in November—down from 546,000 jobs added in October and short of the 550,000 forecasted by economists. Still, the national unemployment rate fell to 4.2% from 4.6% in October, and labor force participation grew to 61.8%, reaching its highest level since March 2020.

Meanwhile, unemployment in North Carolina has been in a steady decline all year. The North Carolina Department of Commerce released its October 2021 county-level unemployment figures last week, showing positive job growth as the state’s unemployment rate (not seasonally adjusted) fell to 3.6% in October. This marks a 0.2% drop from September’s revised rate and a 2.8% decline overall in 2021. However, these figures are preliminary and don’t account for broader seasonal patterns.

Zooming into the Triangle specifically, unemployment in the Durham-Chapel Hill metropolitan statistical area (MSA) fell from 3.1% in September to 2.9% in October, the lowest rate of all metro areas in the state. The Raleigh MSA also dropped from 3.2% in September to 3% in October. Compared to October of last year, the unemployment rate for both MSAs has declined by about 2.6 percentage points.

In Raleigh, the largest monthly changes occurred in the leisure and hospitality sector, which added 2,900 jobs and increased by 4.4%, as well as education and health services, adding 1,800 jobs and increasing 2.2%. In Durham/Chapel Hill, significant gains spread across the mining, logging and construction industry, up 4% with 400 new jobs, and professional and business services, up 3.1% with 1,600 jobs. Both MSAs also experienced modest growth in government jobs last month, among other categories.

A screenshot of the North Carolina Department of Commerce’s October 2021 employment data for Raleigh and Durham/Chapel Hill MSAs. (Data not seasonally adjusted.)

A separate report released last week also spells good news for the region’s tech job market: Demand for IT workers has risen 43% in North Carolina since October 2020. That translates to 45,020 open jobs, according to the North Carolina Technology Association’s latest IT Job Trends report. Comparing MSAs with the most job openings, Raleigh is ranked second behind Charlotte with 13,999 openings (up 40% from October 2020), while Durham/Chapel Hill ranks third with 4,517 jobs (up 36% year-over-year).

Local job openings have also increased so far this month, as today’s Jobs Report indicates. Every Sunday, WRAL TechWire tracks the total number of Triangle-area jobs on major job boards. In our latest count, the week-to-week totals increased on almost all of the sites we measured. (See the full breakdown below.)

WRAL TechWire’s weekly Jobs Report compiles the latest information from the region’s top job boards, offering a breakdown of how many jobs are posted, which companies are hiring, and what positions are most in demand. We’ve also included upcoming job fairs, student-centric resources, and a list of Twitter accounts that track local job openings.

Here’s what’s new since last week’s Jobs Report.

National Job Boards

Here’s a look at the total number of local jobs posted on national job boards compared to last week, as of Sunday afternoon.

Adzuna:
- ⇑ Wake County: 47,866 jobs (+925 from a week ago)
- ⇑ Raleigh: 25,626 (+1,523)
- ⇑ Durham County: 15,058 (+3,695)
Dice.com (using the 5-mile radius filter):
- ⇑ Raleigh: 17,390 (+182)
- ⇑ Durham: 17,167 (+160)
- ⇑ Chapel Hill: 16,950 (+155)
Glassdoor: ⇑ 36,637 jobs across the Research Triangle Park area (+686)
Indeed (5-mile radius filter):
- ⇑ Raleigh: 17,334 (+797)
- ⇑ Durham: 10,207 (+371)
- ⇑ Chapel Hill: 4,038 (+190)
InHerSight: Pages upon pages of jobs across the RTP area
LinkedIn (using the “exact location” and “0-miles” filters):
- ⇑ Raleigh: 29,787 (+13), with 9,729 jobs posted in the past week
- ⇑ Durham: 14,711 (+1,096), with 2,993 jobs posted in the past week
- ⇓ Chapel Hill: 2,536 (-149), with 444 jobs posted in the past week
Remote Tech Jobs: Several remote jobs offered by Triangle-area employers
ZipRecruiter (5-mile filter):
- ⇓ Raleigh: 30,971 (-470)
- ⇑ Durham: 14,533 (+333)
- ⇑ Chapel Hill: 3,707 (+78)

More jobs, investment coming to NC as Thermo Fisher keeps expanding

Startup Job Search Sites

Aside from the boards above, job seekers can also find local startup jobs at SimplyHired (276 startup jobs near Research Triangle Park), LinkedIn (7,877 results in and around Raleigh), Indeed (387 startup jobs in/near RTP) and AngelList (job openings in Raleigh, Durham and across North Carolina).

Here’s a look at local and regional job sites, listed in alphabetical order:

AMA Triangle

AMA Triangle, the fifth-largest chapter in American Marketing Association’s nationwide network, aims to be a go-to resource for all things marketing in the Triangle. AMA Triangle provides professional training, free career webinars, and a job board offering free resume placement for marketing professionals.

As of Sunday afternoon, AMA Triangle’s job board shows 164 marketing jobs in Raleigh, 56 in Durham, and 21 in Chapel Hill (using the 25-mile radius filter).

Three new jobs were added to the site over the last seven days:

North Carolina Dental Society seeks an events and marketing manager in Cary.
North Carolina State University is looking to hire a marketing coordinator in Raleigh.
Verizon is hiring a senior manager of public safety and 5G marketing in Cary.

American Underground

Durham-based startup hub American Underground regularly posts job openings on its job board. Job seekers can filter their search by job function, location, company, industry and job title. As of Sunday afternoon, the site shows 229 jobs at 44 companies.

Several jobs were added to the site over the last week:

Durham-based CureMint, a dental procurement software firm, is hiring a remote associate software engineer.
Direct Supply, a health care equipment and services provider, is hiring a remote national account manager.
Insurtech startup Noyo added two remote job openings for a national practice leader and a VP of finance.
Durham-based payments software provider Spreedly added openings for a talent acquisition manager and an IT operations and project manager.
Durham’s Tiny Earth Toys, a toy subscription service, seeks a customer support associate.

Bio Jobs Hub

Earlier this year, WRAL TechWire and the North Carolina Biotechnology Center launched a Bio Jobs Hub platform focused on biopharma manufacturing — one of North Carolina’s largest industries, employing over 26,000 people.

Typical biopharma jobs include process technicians, maintenance and/or instrumentation technicians, quality assurance and quality control associates, process development scientists and process engineers. This industry also offers competitive entry-level salaries, from $42,000 to $60,000.

From South Korea to North Carolina, finding a career in biotechnology

Scientists, skilled laborers and recent graduates can use the Bio Jobs Hub resource to find career and training opportunities in their area. Users can search by location, job category/activity and region.

Many biopharma companies are hiring in the Triangle, including large employers like Biogen in Research Triangle Park, bioMérieux in Durham, GSK in Zebulon, Merck & Co. in Durham, Novo Nordisk in Durham and Clayton, Pfizer in Sanford, and others.

Leadership Triangle

Leadership Triangle’s job board is packed with local jobs. The site displays 624 openings at 28 companies as of Sunday afternoon.

Here’s what’s been posted in the last week:

Bank of America posted two jobs in Raleigh for a financial solutions advisor trainee (part of its advisor development program) and a relationship manager business owner specialist.
Bland Landscaping is hiring a landscape maintenance skilled laborer in Apex.
Blue Cross NC added 13 openings in Durham, including business application expert, registered dietician case manager, senior program manager, episodic care manager, senior strategic advisor (divisional planning and innovation), senior underwriter, senior financial risk advisor, clinical pharmacist, team leader of divisional compliance, compensation advisor, senior enterprise project manager, IT vendor service delivery consultant and principal developer.
Capitol Broadcasting Company (WRAL TechWire’s parent company) added a baseball media relations trainee position in Durham and a few jobs in Raleigh, including HR benefits and data manager, sales coordinator, WRAL Sports+ executive producer and WRAL lottery draw host.
Coastal Credit Union added five jobs in Raleigh, including loan servicing specialist, internal auditor, fraud operations manager, card services manager and teller.
Compass Center for Women and Families seeks an executive director, a court advocacy and community response intern, and a stability housing coordinator in Chapel Hill.
North Carolina Central University added multiple job openings in Durham, including laboratory instructor, senior scientist, accounting technician, associate director of residential life, assistant director for housing services, public safety supervisor, public safety officer and quality enhancement plan director.
Truist posted several jobs at its Triangle-area locations, including regional insurance specialist, cyber cloud IAM engineer, incentive systems configuration specialist, commercial real estate analyst, AWS cloud platform engineer, teller/senior teller, personal lines insurance inside sales agent, P&C inside sales agent, small business insurance inside sales agent, cybersecurity manager, senior cybersecurity engineer (multiple openings), senior affinity underwriting manager, mobile applications software engineer, CRE underwriter and portfolio manager, employee benefits account manager, and RFP director. (Some of these openings offer remote or hybrid work options.)
William Peace University is hiring an associate registrar and a human resources assistant in Raleigh.

NCBiotech

The North Carolina Biotechnology Center’s extensive jobs board lists open jobs and internships from local life science companies and research organizations. Users can filter by job category, employment type (full-time, part-time and contractor), keywords, postal code and radius.

NCBiotech also touts jobs through its Bio Jobs Hub program.

Several jobs were added to NCBiotech’s board over the last week (since Nov. 29)*:

Principal scientist in oncology delivery, principal scientist in gene/immunotherapy delivery and senior medical device product development engineer at Advanced Chemotherapy Technologies in Raleigh
GMP scientist in bioprocess development and research technician at the Duke Human Vaccine Institute in Durham
Grifols seeks a commercial data analyst in Durham and a procurement specialist and senior operations contract manager in Clayton.
Pharma giant Merck & Co. added several openings at its facilities in RTP, including senior sourcing specialist, manufacturing IT continuous improvement lead, agile lead, senior instrumentation technician, reliability engineer specialist, operations technicians (multiple openings), quality assurance specialist, specialist HVAC/refrigeration engineer, senior technician, senior agile lead, technician, senior manufacturing automation specialist, senior operations specialist, analytics and data engineering specialist, and senior learning and development specialist.
Senior director of emerging company development at the North Carolina Biotechnology Center in RTP
Senior scientist at North Carolina Central University in Durham
Research associate at Parion Sciences in Durham
Regulatory writer, director of manufacturing sciences and technology, cell therapy analytical and technology scientist, senior program manager and clinical outsourcing manager at Precision BioSciences in Durham
Senior design engineer at Redbud Labs in RTP
Principal scientist/associate director of formulation development, bioanalytical research associate, analytical development senior scientist, associate director of clinical research, director of clinical pharmacology and pharmacometrics, director of upstream process development, director/senior director of portfolio management, scientist, senior director of clinical operations, senior director of clinical research and senior scientist at Shattuck Labs in Durham
Quality control scientist, process technician, and in vitro release testing scientist at Tergus Pharma in Durham
Systems delivery manager at Verinetics in RTP

*Note: This list does not include openings posted by recruiting/staffing firms.

NC TECH

The North Carolina Technology Association (NC TECH) has an interactive job board that you can use to find your next career opportunity. Users can search by keyword, location, category, type (full-time or part-time) and experience level.

Three new local jobs were added over the last week:

Software firm CrossComm is hiring a lead backend developer and a director of operations in Durham.
Technology nonprofit MCNC seeks a cybersecurity engineer in RTP.

NCWorks

NCWorks, the statewide job search portal run by the North Carolina Department of Commerce, has nearly 100 career centers located across the state. Users can filter NCWorks’ database by keyword, location, occupation group or specific occupations, minimum acceptable salary, education level, job sources and date posted. NCWorks also has a mobile app on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

North Carolina military veterans, transitioning service members and spouses can find additional resources on NCWorks’ separate veterans portal.

More than 1,600 resumes were updated on the site in the past week, as of Sunday evening. NCWorks reports thousands of available positions across the Triangle area.

In Wake County, the top employers with the most job openings on NCWorks are*:

Wake County Public School System
North Carolina State University
WakeMed Health and Hospitals
UNC Health Care System
Lenovo

Here are the top companies/organizations by job openings in Durham County:

Duke University
Durham Public Schools
Duke University Health System
Cree Wolfspeed
Fidelity Investments

And here are the top employers in Orange County:

UNC Chapel Hill
UNC Health Care System
Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools
Orange County Schools
AHS NurseStat

*Note: This data was gathered through NCWorks’ Labor Market Information portal, which aggregates public job listings. NC Commerce confirmed with TechWire that this search pathway has a thorough process to remove duplicate job listings. Check employers’ websites directly for the latest information.

Raleigh Founded

Raleigh Founded, a startup incubator and coworking space, has its own job board. Job seekers can filter results by company, company size or industry. The site currently lists 165 positions at 30 companies, as of Sunday afternoon.

Nearly a dozen jobs were added to the site over the last seven days:

Raleigh software startup Pendo added openings for a managing corporate counsel, an IT support manager, a director of revenue and a strategic instructional designer.
PublicInput, a community engagement platform for government agencies, added an account executive position in Durham/Raleigh and two remote openings for a digital marketing manager and a full-stack .Net developer.
Levitate, a client communications software firm, seeks a customer success coordinator in Raleigh.
Veeva Systems, a cloud software provider, seeks a senior front-end software engineer, a senior Java engineer and a senior Python engineer in Raleigh.

Research Triangle Cleantech Cluster

This isn’t a job board per se, but the Research Triangle Cleantech Cluster’s list of job search sources is a helpful resource for job seekers in the clean energy sector. The list has links to career opportunities from the organization’s members and partners.

Triangle Region Job Board

Leadership Triangle, Raleigh Founded, and American Underground recently teamed up to create the Triangle Region Job Board, which synthesizes all of the openings posted on the organizations’ job boards. (Those openings are listed under their respective subheadings above.)

As of Sunday afternoon, the site shows 2,163 jobs at 86 companies. The latest Triangle-area openings (excluding remote jobs) come from the following employers:

Bank of America (Raleigh)
Bland Landscaping (Apex)
Blue Cross NC (Durham)
Capitol Broadcasting Company (Raleigh and Durham)
Citrix (Raleigh)
Coastal Credit Union (Raleigh)
Levitate (Raleigh)
North Carolina Central University (Durham)
Pendo (Raleigh)
PublicInput (Durham)
Spreedly (Durham)
Truist (multiple locations)
Veeva Systems (Raleigh)
William Peace University (Raleigh)

There’s a new, Triangle-specific job board, thanks to collaboration of partners

Work in the Triangle

Work in the Triangle, a Wake County Economic Development program, shares new openings daily through its Twitter feed, @WorkTriangleNC. And the search continues to be intense for talent to fill thousands of open jobs both inside and outside the Triangle tech sector.

Every Tuesday, Work in the Triangle’s #TriangleTuesdays hashtag lists hot jobs.

Posts from last Tuesday (Nov. 30) included openings from:

Scroll through the #TriangleTuesdays hashtag on Twitter for more details on the openings.

New Jobs at Terra Dotta

Chapel Hill-based edtech company Terra Dotta told TechWire last month that it’s continuing to hire in the greater RTP area. After increasing its headcount from 65 to 75 so far in 2021, the firm anticipates another seven to 10 new hires before the end of the year.

Terra Dotta also anticipates an additional boost in hiring in 2022 as the company builds out its global engagement platform, which helps colleges and universities connect all aspects of international programming and campus services.

“With global travel quickly picking back up at colleges and universities, we are in growth mode and anticipate demand to further accelerate in 2022, with the potential for a 30% to 50% increase in our team,” says Terra Dotta CEO Anthony Rotoli.

Terra Dotta’s current job openings span product development, marketing, sales and administrative teams. Read more and apply here.

New Jobs at Mycovia Pharmaceuticals

RTP-based Mycovia Pharmaceuticals told TechWire in October that it’s hiring for several positions in project management, market access, insights and analytics, marketing, and quality assurance. The late-stage biopharma company is developing drugs to meet women’s health needs.

A Mycovia spokesperson says it plans to add around nine employees through the fourth quarter of 2021. Its current headcount is 21.

Open positions include:

Commercial project manager
Senior director of pricing and contract analytics
VP of value access and trade
Senior product manager
Quality assurance manager

Upcoming Job Fairs and Career Events

NC TECH Virtual Job Expo: Feb. 9, 8:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. (online)

This virtual job fair is designed for candidates seeking tech-related jobs or internships. Local employers can meet with job seekers in virtual booths. Registration is free for job seekers.

NC TECH Virtual Job Expo

Wake Tech Community College Business & IT Spring 2022 Career Fair: Feb. 9, 9 a.m. – 12 p.m. (online)

In February 2022, Wake Tech will host an online job fair for business and information technology students looking for new career opportunities.

Wake Tech Community College Business & IT Spring 2022 Career Fair

More Job Resources for Local Students

If you’re a student looking for an internship or entry-level position at a local company or organization, your university has resources to help you get started. Quick links below: