North Carolina’s jobless rate fell dramatically in June, the state announced on Friday, as restaurants, hotels and retailers bounced back since Gov. Roy Cooper’s COVID-19 restrictions were eased.

The state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment fell from 12.8% in May to 7.6% in June, as the number of people on the job grew by 227,500 to more than 4.4 million people overall.

Still, the rate was still twice the percentage reported before the pandemic began, and total employment is 444,000 below the state’s June 2019 figure.

The national unemployment rate in June, announced two weeks ago, was 11.1%, a drop of two percentage points compared to May.

Cooper’s stay-at-home orders in March brought most nonessential consumer commerce to a halt. Those restrictions prohibited dine-in services at restaurants statewide.

The percentages are based on employment activity in mid-June, three weeks after Cooper lifted the order and allowed most businesses to reopen at partial capacity, including restaurants. Personal service providers, like hair and nail salons, also could reopen.

So it’s not surprising that the leisure and hospitality industry led the way in employment growth, restoring almost 69,000 jobs for a 22% uptick compared to May.

The category that includes retail and transportation also saw over 22,000 more people employed. All other industry categories increased employment except for two that were flat: information services and publishing, and mining and logging.

Bars, gyms, movie theater and entertainment venues are among business categories that will remain closed until at least Aug. 7. Cooper and his allies said they constitute high-risk settings for coronavirus transmission.

The unemployment rate decline comes even as daily jobless benefit claims filed with the state still exceed the average weekly total received before the pandemic.

More than 8,500 claims were filed on Thursday, according to the Division of Employment Security, bringing the total since mid-March to more than 1.94 million.

Nearly 1.17 million individuals have filed for claims during that time, but the growth of that number has slowed. More than $5.8 billion in state and federal benefits have been paid.

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