Georgia's unemployment rate drops to 6.9% from 7.2% in a month (Atlanta: 2015, insurance)

[SkyIsTheLimt]

Georgia

Georgia’s unemployment rate drops to 6.9 percent

Georgia’s unemployment rate fell to 6.9 percent in December from 7.2 percent in November, as holiday hiring kicked into overdrive, the state labor department said Thursday.

“This was the first time in eight years that we’ve had job growth in December,” state labor commissioner Mark Butler said in a statement. Holiday hiring is usually done by then.

But employers added 900 jobs from November to December, bringing Georgia’s total to 4,196,400 — the highest level since the beginning of the Great Recession in December 2007.

Retail trade, warehousing and transportation, which are industries associated with holiday hiring, accounted for virtually all of the job growth, the labor department said.

Over the past year, Georgia added 108,200 jobs, which pushed down the unemployment rate from 7.4 percent in December 2013.

“We ended the year with our rate dropping below 7 percent for the first time since last April,” Butler said. “I’m especially pleased that we had very strong 2.7 percent over-the year job growth, which gave us our largest December-to-December growth since 1999.”

The key growth sectors were professional and business services, leisure and hospitality, construction, and trade and transportation.

Georgia still has a long way to go to catch up with the recovery nationally. The U.S. unemployment rate was 5.6 percent in December.

Employers here are still laying off a lot of workers, at least temporarily.

There were 57,510 new claims for unemployment insurance filed in December — an increase of 102 percent from November. Of that number, 48.5 percent were temporary claims filed mostly in textile manufacturing and construction due to seasonal layoffs. Additional temporary claims for benefits were filed in administrative and support services, and accommodations and food services.

Over the past year, however, new claims for unemployment insurance were down by 12.7 percent from December 2013. Most of that decline came in manufacturing and construction.

[SkyIsTheLimt]

I think the economy lagged when compared to other cities but it's really picking up now. By the end of 2015 I am hoping the unemployment rate will go down in to the 5s..

[Ant131531]

Wonder what metro Atlanta's rate is. Last I checked, it was 6.5% in November.

[AtlantaIsHot]

It's funny how Georgia's state rate has a hard time coming down despite all the recent announcements. Metro Atlanta has a large distortion on Georgia's economic condition. It is only now in full recovery mode. I would bet it demonstrates that the rural southern half of the state still has such high unemployment that Atlanta's beginning recovery and job creation hasn't been felt by the state as a whole.

[DreamerD]

Originally Posted by AtlantaIsHot

It's funny how Georgia's state rate has a hard time coming down despite all the recent announcements. Metro Atlanta has a large distortion on Georgia's economic condition. It is only now in full recovery mode. I would bet it demonstrates that the rural southern half of the state still has such high unemployment that Atlanta's beginning recovery and job creation hasn't been felt by the state as a whole.

Yeah, I hear the rural areas aren't doing so well (including areas up north). I'm still glad to hear the good news though and hope job growth will exceed everyone's expectations and eventually lead to wage gains because I'm pretty sure most of us could use a raise.

[DJDeadParrot]

BLS has an interactive map showing unemployment by county. The counties with the highest unemployment are no doubt rural, but some rural counties, such as Miller, Oglethorpe, and Union, also have the lowest rates.

Map

[testa50]

Originally Posted by Ant131531

Wonder what metro Atlanta's rate is. Last I checked, it was 6.5% in November.

Metro Atlanta's unemployment rate for December will be released next Thursday. Note that metro unemployment rates aren't seasonally adjusted while state unemployment rates are; next week the non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for Georgia will be released, and it will likely be a good bit lower than 6.9%. During Christmas, employers hire lots of temporary workers and it pushes the unemployment rate down; most of them have lost their jobs by now.

Far more important than unemployment rates are the year-over-year job growth numbers, which can be found in this report:

http://www.dol.state.ga.us/pdf/pr/nonag_msa.pdf

Georgia added 104,000 jobs over last December; 65,000 of which are in Atlanta metro. These are GOOD numbers. 2,514,000 jobs in the Atlanta metro area is the highest total ever. This is the number to watch.

This chart shows the total number of jobs over the last few years, but doesn't yet have the latest month's data:

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/SMU13...a_tool=XGtable

Unemployment rates are affected by lots of different factors: how many workers who are out of work are actually seeking work (which can jump up in the event that the economy improves and workers get the impression there is hope of actually landing a job), how many people are entering and exiting the workforce due to demographic reasons, and workers are merely counted as "employed" or "unemployed" even if they take on two jobs. The "payroll" survey of employers instead looks at how many aggregate jobs there are across the economy, and is a more accurate picture of how large and robust a labor market is.