Athens is continuing to post strong numbers when it comes to jobs. Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler says Athens added more jobs in March. According to preliminary data Athens also lowered its unemployment rate and added to the number of employed residents across the four-county metropolitan statistical area (MSA).
“We still have a lot of job creation, we saw over 200 jobs created over the month, as a matter of fact, we 500 more jobs today than we saw the same time last year and the number of employed increased over the month,” according to Butler.
The unemployment rate for Athens dropped three-tenths a point to 3.5 percent.
However, Butler says more people are needed in the labor force because there are several jobs available in the Classic City.
“We did see the number of individuals in the labor force, these are individuals that are either working or in most cases, actively seeking work; we saw that number drop over the month.”
He says the state’s online job listing service is showing hundreds of available positions.
“We took a look at EmployGeorgia.com and on there we are showing almost 15-hundred active job listings. We need to get more individuals off the sidelines, that maybe think there’s not jobs out there when’s there are plenty of jobs out there. You’re showing 15-hundred jobs online; we’re having good job creation over the year.
Butler wants to get the word out about those opportunities.
“So we need to reverse that trend and get more individuals to join the labor force to be able to fill these many jobs that we currently have open in the Athens area.”
The four-county MSA includes Clarke, Madison, Oconee and Oglethorpe counties.
