The November numbers for Georgia’s jobs, employment and labor forces continued to grow while claims for unemployment insurance fell. The State Department of Labor says the unemployment rate remained unchanged from October 4.3 percent. Commissioner Mark Butler says the state has finally shaken off the effects of Hurricane Irma.
“So we were still seeing a lot of effects from the storm because a lot of people were out of work for a while and made some temporary claims,” Butler said. “I think the month of November shows us what the normal track of things should be, and are getting us back on to the right path.”
He says overall 2017 has been a strong year for Georgia.
“We did see a significant increase in employment which to me is the most important number right now, mainly because the fact is at almost any given time during this past year you could take a look at employgeorgia.com and you could see the open job listings for the state of Georgia. You could see easily, right around 100,000 job openings statewide at any given moment.”
Butler explains why that is an important number.
“Right now the most important number we’ve been looking at is, are people actually getting jobs that are open, and we have seen a very good increase when it comes to actual employment across the state in 2017 as opposed to 2016.”
Georgia has added 85,200 new jobs over the past 12 months, that’s growth rate of nearly two percent.
