Gov. Beverly Perdue said this morning she saw "a glimmer of hope" with the economy, with the stock market showing some signs of life and with signs that North Carolina may be reaching the bottom with unemployment.
Perdue said that the new figures to be released this morning show unemployment in March had only risen one-tenth of one percent, Rob Christensen reports.
But the governor said there was still heavy pain all across the state from people of all walks of life who have lost their job.
"The question I hear over and over is the next pay check going to be a pink slip?" Perdue told about 50 people at a meeting of the Alliance of North Carolina Black Elected Officials at the Sheraton Raleigh Hotel.
More after the jump.
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"Is there going to be work for me? How can I pay my bills. How do you expect me to send my kid to college? What am I going to do if they take my house? What am I going to do now that they have cancelled my credit?"
Earlier this week, Perdue said she had made an unannounced visit to an Employment Security Commission office in Charlotte, where she talked to the unemployed for an hour and half.
She said she met a 59-year old man with a Ph.D. who was earning $180,000 per year before losing his job. "he was stunned. He was shell shocked that he lost his job," Perdue said.
"He said: where does a 59-year old man go?" Perdue said
"I said, 'You have got to reinvent yourself,' " Perdue said. " 'Perhaps this is a time in your life when you should figure out what you like to do.' "
Perdue said she also met a young mother who was working three jobs, who stopped at the employment office every Wednesday morning to see if there is a better job because she doesn't have a computer at home.
The governor talked for a former military person who was laid off Freightliner trucking company where he had worked for 19 years.
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