GOP legislators came face-to-face with some of the 37,000 unemployed North Carolinians who have been cut off from their jobless benefits.

Pasadena, CA -- (SBWire) -- 05/05/2011 -- GOP legislators came face-to-face with some of the 37,000 unemployed North Carolinians who have been cut off from their jobless benefits.

These people and the 37,000 other unemployed people in North Carolina are in the long-term jobless category. Their benefits have been cut off because of a political battle between Gov. Perdue, who is a Democrat and the GOP-led house. GOP lawmakers tied the extension of the benefits to a bill on budget cuts. This bill would have forced Perdue to make huge budget cuts before further negotiations began over the benefits.

North Carolinians came from all over the state to tell GOP lawmakers about the hardships that they were facing because of the cutoff. Both GOP and the Governor claimed to be working on a solution to the impasse. Gov. Perdue’s spokesman Mark Johnson claimed that the governor was eager to work with the legislature on the budget.

RaleighCrossing, a job aggregator website focused only on jobs in the Raleigh metro area has found 10,000 jobs so far. The sectors with the highest number of openings are healthcare (1,000+), managerial (1,500+), information technology (2,000+), and engineering (1,000+).