(RALEIGH) -- The U.S. Labor Department reported on Friday that the economy added just 120,000 jobs in March. That is down sharply from more than 200,000 in each of the previous three months. NC State University Economist Mike Walden said North Carolina is starting to move in the right direction, but still very slowly.

"Since the job market bottomed out in February 2010, that is to say that is when we reached the lowest point in our job numbers and since then we have been adding job, North Carolina has actually added jobs at a slightly faster rate than the nation," said Walden.

The national unemployment rate dipped to 8.2 percent March, but mostly because more Americans stopped looking for work. February is the latest month where North Carolina jobless data is available.  In February, the state's jobless rate dropped to 9.9 percent.