From Staff Reports

ASHEVILLE, N.C. — Buncombe County economic recovery data for 2025 reflects a “mixed bag,” Vic Isley, president & CEO of Explore Asheville and the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority, told the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners on Jan. 6.

“Employment in the leisure and hospitality industry has remained lower than pre–Tropical Storm Helene levels throughout 2025 — a marker of Western North Carolina’s uneven recovery from the storm,”  the Asheville Citizen Times stated Jan. 14 in its summary of the Jan. 6 report by Isley.

“Buncombe County has been slow to rebound from Helene, which caused a spike in unemployment and forced businesses to close as the city of Asheville faced a 52-day water outage.” 

As of September 2025, unemployment in Buncombe County had reached 3.6 percent, still above the pre-Helene of 2.5 percent, but far lower than the 6 percent, where it began the year, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Isley said. 

However, she added, recovery in the jobs market remains uneven.

While some industries have grown, with education services increasing by 4 percent to 37,700 jobs in September 2025, hospitality employment remains lower in the region than before Helene, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data, Isley noted.

In September 2025, hospitality industry jobs in the Asheville Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes Buncombe, Henderson and Madison counties, had declined to 25,800, dropping more than 7 percent over 12 months, Isley said The industry buoys more than $2.6 billion in annual visitor spending in the region, she said.

Indeed, fiscal year 2025, which spanned July 2024 to June 2025, resulted in a 23 percent decline in lodging sales in the county, Isley noted.

To that end, she said, “Hospitality employment remains a challenge for our residents, as the decline in sales has carried into fiscal year 2026. 

For instance. she noted that July, typically one of the busiest months in the region, posted $49 million in lodging sales, according to data from the BCTDA, a 20 percent decline compared to both 2024 and 2023.

“Workforce recovery efforts in 2025 from the state of North Carolina included the distribution of more than $96.6 million in Disaster Unemployment Assistance across Western North Carolina, the North Carolina Department of Commerce announced on Jan. 7,” the ACT noted.