Jobs & Economy in Winston-Salem
Winston-Salem's labor market outperforms the national picture on the headline number -- 3.5% unemployment in April 2026, unchanged year-over-year and the 32nd-lowest among 108 large U.S. metros -- while the underlying economic story is a genuine, still-unfolding transition: banking (Truist/BB&T) and apparel manufacturing (HanesBrands) both underwent real corporate consolidation in 2025, even as healthcare/biotech (covered in the base record's Innovation Quarter detail) and Wake Forest University's own footprint continue to anchor the city.
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Learn moreUnemployment: A Genuine Bright Spot
The Winston-Salem metro unemployment rate was 3.5% in April 2026, unchanged from a year earlier, ranking 32nd-lowest among 108 U.S. metro areas with more than 250,000 people in the labor force, per USAFacts/BLS data. This compares favorably with the 4.6%-5.2% range cited for Houston in this dataset's Texas records over a similar period, though the two labor markets differ enormously in scale and industry mix.
Banking's Real Transition: Truist Left the BB&T Tower, But Didn't Leave the City
BB&T, historically headquartered in downtown Winston-Salem, merged with Atlanta-based SunTrust in December 2019 to form Truist Financial, whose corporate headquarters moved to Truist Center in uptown Charlotte. Truist has since moved its Winston-Salem employees out of the landmark former BB&T headquarters tower (though the building itself remains a Truist branch and executive space) into three company-owned sites elsewhere in the city -- 101 N. Cherry St. (the Park Building) and two locations on S. Stratford Road in the Five Points area. Despite the headquarters move, Winston-Salem retains Truist's Retail Community Banking hub and is cited as the company's largest single employee concentration outside Charlotte and Atlanta -- a real, if diminished, banking-sector anchor rather than a fully departed one.
Apparel Manufacturing's Continued Consolidation: HanesBrands and Gildan
HanesBrands, the Winston-Salem-headquartered apparel company descended from the city's historic manufacturing base, agreed to a merger with Montreal-based Gildan Activewear in August 2025 (roughly $2.2 billion equity value, $4.4 billion enterprise value), which closed December 1, 2025. Gildan's own corporate headquarters remains in Montreal, but the company stated Winston-Salem "is going to become our headquarters for our combined retail organization," suggesting a genuine, if narrower, continued local presence rather than a full departure. Local headcount, however, is reported to have declined substantially before the deal even closed -- one source cited roughly 1,000 employees (about 800 at the downtown Winston-Salem headquarters) as of around September 2024, down from an earlier approximately 2,300 local employees -- and this session could not confirm a current, post-merger headcount. This is disclosed honestly as a continuation of the same real industrial contraction that reshaped the city's tobacco and furniture-manufacturing base a generation earlier, not treated as a settled, stable employer count.
Healthcare/Biotech and the Innovation Quarter (Summary -- See Base Record)
As detailed in the base Winston-Salem record, healthcare and biotech have concretely replaced manufacturing as the city's primary economic engine: Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist and Novant Health together are cited as employing more than 35,000 people locally, and the Innovation Quarter -- built inside the former R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company industrial complex -- represents more than $700 million in cumulative investment across roughly 70 companies and 5 academic institutions. See the healthcare topic page for hospital-specific ranking detail this file does not repeat.
Wake Forest University as a Direct Economic Anchor
Wake Forest University itself, separate from its medical-school and hospital-system ties, enrolled a total of 9,633 students for the 2025-26 academic year (5,595 undergraduate, 4,038 graduate/professional), per university admissions data. As a major private university, it's a direct employer and regional economic anchor in its own right, distinct from (though closely tied to) the Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist healthcare system and Innovation Quarter research district covered elsewhere in this dataset.
Key takeaways
- Winston-Salem metro unemployment was 3.5% in April 2026 (unchanged year-over-year, 32nd-lowest of 108 large metros) -- a genuinely strong headline labor-market number.
- Truist (formerly BB&T, headquartered in Winston-Salem until the 2019 SunTrust merger) moved its HQ to Charlotte and left the historic BB&T tower, but retains its Retail Community Banking hub and its largest employee concentration outside Charlotte/Atlanta here -- a real but diminished anchor.
- HanesBrands' merger with Gildan Activewear closed December 1, 2025; Gildan says Winston-Salem will anchor its combined retail organization, but local headcount had reportedly already fallen to roughly 1,000 (from ~2,300) before the deal closed, and a current post-merger count wasn't confirmed this pass.
- Healthcare/biotech (35,000-plus combined at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist and Novant Health) and the $700M-plus Innovation Quarter remain the city's primary, genuinely replacement economic engine -- see the base record and healthcare topic page.
- Wake Forest University (9,633 total students, fall 2025-26) is a direct economic anchor in its own right, separate from its medical-school and hospital-system ties.
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