Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said Thursday that Athens added more people to its labor force in May. The labor consists of people who are working and those actively seeking jobs. However, he says more people are still needed to fill job openings in the area.
“We’re showing about 11-hundred fewer people in the labor force than we had the same time last year” Butler said. “The reason why that’s very important is we have a lot of job openings in the Athens area. Over 15-hundred jobs were posted over the last 30 days on EmployGeorgia.com for the Athens area so we actually need that number to increase significantly to help fill these jobs in the Athens area to keep the economy growing.”
According to preliminary data, Athens also decreased monthly and annual numbers for unemployment claims across the four-county metropolitan statistical area (MSA). And while the unemployment rate increased slightly, Butler says the overall picture looks good.
“When we take a look at some other numbers that were in the negative area, we did see the total number of individuals employed actually go down over the month and the total number of jobs decrease. However, we’re still showing 600 more jobs in the Athens area this May than we saw the same time last year. Over the year, we’ve had very good job growth in the Athens area.”
Butler says the number of unemployment claims went down by about 2 percent in May. When compared to last May, the numbers are significantly better.
Athens ended May with 97,211 employed residents.
The four-county MSA includes Clarke, Madison, Oconee and Oglethorpe counties.
