The Georgia labor market set records in August. State Labor Commissioner Mark Butler says Georgia’s unemployment rate for August dipped below the national number for the first time in 11 years.
The rate of 3.8 percent is approaching the state’s record low of 3.4 percent set in 2000.
“It is kind of a very good threshold to finally hit, to be lower than the national rate, however I do think that we still have even more room to improve.”
Last August’s statewide rate was 4.5 percent.
At the same time, Georgia set records for jobs and employed residents. Unemployment claims also fell in August.
“We’re seeing something we haven’t seen ever, since we’ve been keeping records. The number of claims that were filed last month versus the total amount of people in the workforce, it’s not even a half a percent; it’s point 41 percent. That is extremely low, as a matter of fact, that is the lowest percentage of total workforce filing for unemployment since we’ve been keeping records, which goes all the way back to 1976.”
Butler says Georgia also continues to approach another milestone: the 5-million mark for employed residents.
Butler encourages both those looking for jobs and employers posting jobs to visit the department’s online job listing service employ Georgia dot com. There were 75,686 jobs posted on employgeorgia.com during August. Of those jobs, 36 percent were for STEM occupations.
