Even outsiders now confident the state, Cape Fear region are bouncing back

Construction is up, sales are up and prices are up. Many other North Carolina cities were already on the list and have been ahead of the Cape Fear region, but now we, too, can count ourselves among metropolitan areas where the housing market is making a definite comeback.

Another reason for optimism came this week in the form of a Charlotte economist's prediction that North Carolina's recovery will be decidedly better by next year. John Connaughton, an economist with the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, says housing construction and rising consumer confidence may finally result in a feeling of recovery early next year. He expects employers to add 86,000 jobs in 2014 – well above the 53,100 he predicts will be created this year.

As with all prognostications, it's impossible to predict the future with certainty. And despite solid improvements in a variety of job categories, the most troubling aspect of this economic recovery is a lack of jobs that pay a living wage.

Although professional and business services, health care and education have seen an increase in jobs, the low-wage hospitality industry has led job creation. Many of the people who lost their jobs during the recession were making much more than low-skill service jobs pay.

An economist from N.C. State University compares the job market to a dumbbell, in which the biggest gain in jobs is among low-skill, low-wage workers on one end, and high-paying jobs that require specialized skills and/or advanced degrees are on the other. Michael Walden, who wrote about the dumbbell effect in a column for The Raleigh News & Observer, notes that in the middle – the long, narrow piece connecting the two ends of the dumbbell – jobs are scarcer.

And the ones that are open often go unfilled because workers with the necessary skills are not available.

We need to beef up the middle, and it won't happen with low-paying jobs. We must also do a better job helping unemployed workers.

None of this is new – they are the running themes of this long, slow recovery. We have known that the housing market is recovering, even if outsiders are just now catching on. We've known that the recovery has been lopsided, favoring jobs that pay poorly and most often have no accompanying benefits. And we know that unemployed workers need help obtaining skills that are needed in today's jobs rather than relying on skills that may now be obsolete.

But home builders are actively seeking lots on which to build – in fact, one thing holding them back is a shortage of available, buildable lots. That's partly because larger developers bought up build-ready lots at a bargain price during the recession, leaving fewer lots that are subdivided and ready for small home building businesses.

And the growth estimate by the national association is conservative compared with what local real estate and construction associations are reporting. If UNCC's Connaughton is correct, manufacturing and construction will join hospitality, retail and professional sectors in adding jobs for North Carolina.

We hope to see the Cape Fear region among the areas experiencing that growth.