It’s a good time to be in Charlotte if you’re looking for a job in healthcare or engineering. Tech and media not so much, though. That’s according to an analysis of job listings on the site Indeed, whose director of economic research recently spoke in Charlotte. For more, Tony Mecia of the Charlotte Ledger Business Newsletter joined WFAE’s Marshall Terry for our segment BizWorthy.
Marshall Terry: I touched on it a bit, but which industries are hiring and which aren't in Charlotte, and how has that changed?
Tony Mecia: It's pretty interesting. Laura Ullrich, who is an economist with Indeed, spoke to the Charlotte Economics Club last week. She shared some data about which jobs have had a big rise in job postings since COVID and which ones have had fewer. A lot of people talk about a singular job market, but she said it's really a bunch of different job markets depending on what kind of field you're in and that fields like healthcare, construction, and engineering — those have seen big increases in the last five or six years in job postings in the Charlotte region. But on the other hand fields like technology and media, as well as banking, are down. The job postings there have dropped. And so it's sort of interesting just to see the differences among the different sectors.
Terry: How much of this change has to do with the rise of artificial intelligence, and how much with overall economic conditions in the U.S.?
Mecia: Ullrich said that it's not just that AI is coming in and taking people's jobs and putting them out on the street. Companies are dealing with it in different ways. They're incorporating it into their processes. Some of them maybe are not hiring as much as they used to while they see if AI can be a tool for productivity.
Some companies, she said, have come out and said they're not really seeing the productivity gains that they thought. Maybe that bodes well for us humans. She also said that in fields like technology, there was a lot of overhiring right after COVID when companies thought that they could just automate a lot of things and that we would all be doing everything remotely. Didn't quite pan out that way. So you've seen a lot of layoffs in the tech sector and less hiring.
Terry: Let’s go now to Eastover, where plans have been unveiled for the old Manor Theatre site. For those who may not know, what was the Manor Theatre? And what are the plans?
Mecia: The Manor Theatre was a beloved movie theater on Providence Road in Eastover that was open for 73 years before closing in 2020 during COVID. It's been vacant since then. Around that site, there's some other stores closing. There was a Panera that closed right next to it. It's a pretty prominent site right along that dividing line between Eastover and Myers Park. This month Eastern Federal Corp., which owns the site, along with StreetLights Residential, which is another developer, they said they're actually going to redevelop that site with 120 to 130 residential units and about 35,000 square feet of retail.
They’re going to call it The Manor as a homage to the old theater. We actually talked to the Eastover Residents’ Association. The president of the association actually said that they welcome the new development and that something needs to happen there because the current site is unsightly.
Terry: Finally, let’s venture a little outside of Charlotte. What was said to be North Carolina’s oldest bar is no more. Where and what happened?
Mecia: A lot of people are mourning the loss of Bistro Roca, which is a restaurant in Blowing Rock. It had what was called the Antlers Bar, which was started in 1932 at the very end of Prohibition. Unfortunately, on Sunday, a fire broke out in the restaurant's basement. The restaurant and the Antlers Bar were destroyed. A lot of people mourning the loss of history. The fire's cause is under investigation, but the owners say they will rebuild.
Support for BizWorthy comes from the law office of Robertson & Associates.
