Fury 325 was added, we lost Thunder Road.
Blackbeards Revenge was added, Southern Sidewinder is going away. The new County Fair assuming that no rides are removed is likely meant to take up the slack that Thunder Road's removal caused. It could also be debated that Southern Sidewider's capacity was no longer needed due to 11 slides being added.
As far as what Carowinds pays their employees, jobs like Ride Operator are meant for people like Amos(sorry to use you for an example buddy) not people like me who have a family. Increasing the pay rate for low level employees would reduce profits for the park if it didn't lead to an increase in the costs to the end consumers(visitors). Carowinds isn't like Disneyland where the park is at capacity on a regular basis, capacity for Carowinds used to 50,000 visitors or more per fire code. The average Saturday was 18,000 visitors in 2006.