The county, North Carolina’s seventh-most populous, was fifth on the state’s list of counties by number of pandemic-related first-time unemployment insurance claimants in April. Of those claims, 21.7% were from workers in the leisure and hospitality industries, while 15.6% were from the trade, transportation and utilities sector.
Roughly 22 million fewer people claimed a tax benefit from their charitable giving in 2018 than in 2017, thanks primarily to the higher standard deduction threshold established under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. According to a study by Giving USA, inflation-adjusted individual charitable contributions decreased by 3.4% from 2017 to 2018.
In the first quarter of 2019, the Asheville area saw an average of 5,400 new jobs compared to the same period the previous year, with gains in manufacturing, professional and business services and construction.
Asheville metro manufacturing employment grew by 1,400 jobs in the fourth quarter, the sector’s strongest performance in over two decades. Buncombe unemployment continued to be the lowest in the state, but area wages trailed state and national averages.
Perhaps your business needs startup capital to make your idea fly. Or maybe rubbing elbows with lawmakers will give you an edge. Opportunities for building business skills, attracting investment and developing business relationships abound in WNC throughout the late summer and into the fall, and our business news in brief will keep you in the know.
In our weekly roundup of business news in brief, Jeff Kaplan takes the helm of Venture Asheville, while local printing concern Allegra Marketing Print Mail was named No. 16 on the Top 100 Quick and Small Commercial Printers compiled by Printing News in its annual survey.
