GREENSBORO, N.C. — Unemployment numbers are rising every day and the impact in Guilford County is becoming more clear.
The WARN summary, released by the North Carolina Department of Commerce, lists businesses that have reported they're laying off 50 or more full-time employees during any 30 day period.
To read more on the WARN summary, visit the NC Commerce website.
"This is so extremely important for us to know that businesses have one, been impacted by this pandemic and they have made the decision to lay off individuals from their respective operations," said Chris Rivera, Director of Workforce Development with Guilford County. "And secondly, it gives us indicators of the number of individuals that have been displaced so we can deploy resource services to them to make it through this pandemic."
Guilford County has nearly 2,000 employees who've been permanently or temporarily laid off, for at least 6 months, according to the report.
It's the second-highest county in the state, behind only Mecklenburg.
Rivera said the data doesn't account for every single unemployed person in the state of North Carolina.
"Those numbers grossly misrepresent the true impact of displacement as a result of this pandemic," said Rivera.
Rivera said they're pushing the state to release numbers for all impacted employees.
Until then, they can only guess how many people really need help.
"Our fear is it is bad or worse than we believe and we need to begin to wrap our head around once we come out of this pandemic what will this economy, what will our community look like?" he said.
Rivera said the Workforce Development Center has many resources to help people get connected and back to work if they're experiencing unemployment.
The Workforce Development Center is helping people get back to work every day.
If you'd like to get in touch with Guilford County's Workforce Development Center, you can visit the website: www.guilfordworks.org or call 336-297-9444.