NC Strategic Economic Development Plan

The NC General Assembly directs the Secretary of Commerce to develop a four-year Comprehensive Strategic Economic Development Plan with annual updates. For the 2020 plan, the Department engaged the ncIMPACT Initiative and the UNC Center for Urban & Regional Studies to support development of the plan. Extensive research and analysis included (but was not limited to):

• Data on employment and wage trends by industrial sector over the past three decades,
• Profile of the state’s workforce,
• Strategic analysis of national and international trends, as well as technological changes that will influence the future competitiveness of driving industries, and
• Economic profile and shift-share analysis for each of the state’s eight prosperity zones.

The ncIMPACT Initiative hosted eight regional sessions (one in each of the state’s prosperity zones) to collect input from stakeholders across the state that informed North Carolina’s Strategic Economic Development Plan. The regional sessions began with an exploration of key regional and sub-regional economic data and captured feedback on proposed priorities from stakeholders to ensure that the regional findings are both accurate and tell the full story of each region’s economy. Participants in the regional sessions represented local elected officials, chambers of commerce, economic developers, education – K12, community colleges, and universities, workforce development boards, councils of governments, and major employers.