Georgia’s unemployment rate is the lowest it’s been in over a decade. Numbers released today by the state Department of Labor show the rate was 4.7 percent in July, down a tenth a point from June. Labor Commissioner Mark Butler says that’s the sixth month in a row unemployment has dropped in Georgia. But while the unemployment rate was down, the state still saw about 14,000 fewer jobs in July compared to June.
“Some of these may be some seasonal factors involved,” according to Butler. “First of all there are some very large construction projects that have ended and I expect to see a lot of those persons that were in those jobs probably on other construction jobs shortly.’
Students heading back to school after working all summer also affected the job numbers.
“Also with school going back early like it did this year in a lot of places, some of the summer jobs that have been out there are probably going away and a lot of the kids that were in those jobs have gone back to school or are about to go back to school. A lot of those have ended, which probably affected our labor force summer.
Butler says in spite of that number, there was more good news in this month’s report.
“All is not lost because we did see just under four thousand Georgians actually go back to work and that is probably the best number in the jobs report.
The unemployment rate was 5.3 percent in July of last year. Butler says Georgia's job growth is outpacing that of the nation, at 2.2% compared to 1.5%. He encourages job seekers and employers to use the department’s online job listing service, at employgeorgia.com, to search for jobs or to post available positions.
