(CHAPEL HILL) -- North Carolina's 9.7 percent unemployment rate may seem bleak, but UNC researchers say the real figure is even worse. Researchers at the Center for Competitive Economies say, when other factors are taken into account, the rate is actually 17.5 percent.

These other factors include the underemployed, those who are not looking for a job, and those who are not collecting benefits. The UNC experts say the adjusted number is a better indication of the state's economic health, because it includes people who work part-time or have given up looking.

Senior research director Jason Jolley said the state has lost hundreds of thousands of quality jobs that are not easy to replace. "We've lost 100,000 manufacturing jobs in North Carolina since 2007, 80,000 construction jobs and those individuals have had to work in lower paying service sector jobs and may of them have also just given up entirely," said Jolley. They've tried to get retrained.  They are not looking for work at all and they don't get counted in the unemployment statistics."

He added that the state would have to add 80,000 jobs a year for ten years to replace the jobs that have been lost.