Athens broke records last month according to the most recent numbers from the Georgia Department of Labor. Commissioner Mark Butler says Athens continues to prospers event as numbers were generally down in several cities around the state.
“Well not only did we see the unemployment rate decrease, but we saw two really good numbers go up,” according to Butler. “First of all, we the number of individuals actually employed during the month almost hit 400, which that’s a really good increase in the number of individuals becoming employed.”
Butler says Athens was one of just three metropolitan statistical areas to grow by 1,000 jobs or more in April. The four-county MSA includes Clarke, Madison, Oconee, and Oglethorpe counties.
“Also, we saw really good job creation during the month as we saw a thousand jobs added during that time period, so overall those are two numbers that you really look at that shows you that things are really going well in the Athens area.”
He says the state is doing better than the rest of the nation as a whole.
“We’re continuing to local areas create jobs and put people to work, which also helps more people to the workforce. As we saw last month on the national level, participation on the workforce actually went down and we also saw a big drop in the labor force and we’re really not seeing that in Georgia overall. We’re actually seeing people come into the workforce and not only that we’re also seeing better job growth and more individuals actually become employed. Right now, we’re actually outpacing the nation.”
Athens unemployment rate dropped by four tenths of a point bringing the local unemployment rate to 3.4 percent.
Butler says Athens did face some challenges. The labor force dropped, and initial claims for unemployment rose by 11 percent for the month.
