Northeast Georgia set records in July when it comes to the labor force and the number of employed residents. The Georgia Department of Labor released the numbers today.
Commissioner Mark Butler says at the same the 12-county area saw its unemployment rate tumble to the second-lowest among rate all 12 regions in the state.
“The jobs board is in for the month of July for the northeast Georgia region, and in that report, we saw the unemployment rate decrease by .3 of a point, bringing the rate down to 3.7 percent,” Butler says.
He says initial claims for unemployment grew by about 25 percent for the month but are down by about 15 percent for the year.
“What we did see that was very good news is individuals are still being attracted to the strong job market in northeast Georgia as we saw over 600 individuals who had previously not been looking for work join the workforce and start their job search,” Butler says.
According to Butler, people are not just looking for work in the region; they are finding it.
“And the best news of all is that we saw those individuals be successful. Over 1,400 individuals actually gained employment during the month of July.”
Butler says the region hit to an all-time high of over 300,000 jobs. That’s more than 11,000 over the past year, or just under 1,000 per month. He encourages both those looking for jobs and those posting jobs to visit the department’s online job listing service, employGeorgia.com.
The Northeast Georgia region includes Barrow, Clarke, Elbert, Greene, Jackson, Jasper, Madison, Morgan, Newton, Oconee, Oglethorpe, and Walton counties.
