In June 2002, the Wilmington Star-News Factbook states that the unemployment rate for New Hanover County has dropped to 6.6 percent!

In the last decade of the 20th century, the Lower Cape Fear region's economy has remained, like the weather, moderate and relatively stable. This stability, according to local business and economic leaders, helps the area to be somewhat immune to state and national economic trends. Despite both good and bad economic periods in its history, the Greater Wilmington area hasn't experienced the excessive highs during more prosperous eras nor drastic lows during recessions as other demographically similar regions.

In the years preceding the start of the 21st century, the area experienced a period of economic growth. During 1997, as a result of the rapid population growth and rebuilding efforts after Hurricanes Bertha and Fran in 1996, the economic growth rate reached 10 percent. While 1998 was also a good year for the region's economy, this rate of growth slipped to 7 percent in overall economic activity in New Hanover, Brunswick and Pender counties, which translates into approximately $7.3 billion. Projecting into 1999, William W. Hall, director for the Cameron School of Business at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, forecasts that overall economic activity for these three counties will increase 6.5 percent to $7.8 billion. During this same period, North Carolina's expected growth is projected to increase 4 to 4.5 percent, while the national economy's forecast is an increase of only 2.5 to 3 percent.

Growth in service-oriented businesses, particularly in the retail trade, is credited for the increase in the region's economy in the past few years, with nearly 80 percent of the total employment figures, especially for New Hanover County. Retail trade alone accounts for close to 23.7 percent of that amount. The breakdown of employment figures in other business areas includes: finance, insurance and real estate - 4.4 percent; healthcare - 6 percent; construction - 8.1 percent; and manufacturing --15 percent. While individual and family-owned businesses in the Lower Cape Fear region are plentiful, these figures suggest that most of the area's employed work primarily for someone else. However, the completion of Interstate 40 into the region and the sophistication of modern, fiberoptic technology have brought a new breed of business professionals migrating to the Cape Fear area. The ease found in state-of-the-art communication by phone, fax and modem allow the consultant or freelance entrepreneur to live anywhere.

Geography is an inevitable factor that sets Wilmington apart from the overall North Carolina economy, and it is also driving some new trends that are positioning Wilmington to take advantage of a new and prosperous era at the beginning of the 21st century. Its maritime environment creates opportunities for business based on what is naturally available - the sea, the river, the many beautiful views - instead of that which must be manufactured. Although manufacturing is still an economic force in the region, statistics compiled by the University of North Carolina at Wilmington's Cameron School of Business indicate that the bulk of today's employment opportunities are in the services sector. This is a broad category that includes such diverse occupations as physicians, government workers, educators, and fast-food employees.