Durham and surrounding counties have the highest paid workers in North Carolina, according to the latest federal data.
The Durham Metropolitan Statistical Area, which consists of Chatham, Durham, Orange and Person counties, has more than 260,000 employees who received an annual salary of $53,220 or $25.59 per hour on average, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Following Durham MSA, Raleigh-Cary MSA employs 489,670 people who receive an annual salary $44,810 or $21.54 per hour on average.
“There are a lot of forces at play,” said Kevin Dick, director of the office of economic and workforce development for the city of Durham. “We have a pretty diverse group of knowledge-based industries, [which] tend to pay higher salaries.”
Some of the knowledge-based industries include health care, life sciences information technology and emerging green technology, Dick said. The universities in the area help facilitate these sectors by engaging in research and educating many people for those fields. Many university medical centers, including the Duke University Health System, provide viable employment opportunities.
The public sector also contributes to the job market in the area, with the city and county governments ranking among the largest employers in the area.
Durham County also has one of the highest concentrations of physicians per capita and nearly one in three workers is employed in a medical related industry, according to the county Chamber of Commerce’s website.
But average salary data can be misleading because the different compensation levels for occupations can distort the numbers, said Kyle Cavanaugh, vice president for administration.
People with a post-graduate education are going to earn well above average, said Bob Korstad, Kevin D. Gorter professor of history and public policy. The statistics from the Bureau do not account for the unemployed and the poor.
“The people at the top do not make up the majority,” Korstad said.
Additionally, the relatively high average salaries do not translate into positive indicators for the community as a whole, Dick noted. Durham has one of the highest poverty rates in the state and a low high school graduation rate.
As of December 2011, the unemployment rate of the Durham-Chapel Hill area is 7.5 percent, which is lower that North Carolina’s 9.9 percent, and the nation’s 8.5 percent, according to the Bureau.
It is sustainable for Durham MSA to have the highest paid workers at least for the near term, despite the layoffs at Research Triangle Park, Korstad said.
“It doesn’t look to me like the University or the medical center is going to fall apart” Korstad said.
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