Last year, North Carolina public schools employed over 100,000 full-time teachers.  As a point of comparison, the largest single employer in the state, the University of North Carolina system, has just over 74,000 employees.

The most common methods for raising teacher pay are embedding experience-based increases in the state salary schedule and increasing local salary supplements.  Awarding pay increases based on credentials, additional duties, subjects, or performance is controversial and thus much less common.