Politics & Government

State Unemployment Rate Drops as Fewer File Claims

More jobs and fewer layoffs in most metro Atlanta counties helped push the state's unemployment rate down to 8.4 percent, it's lowest since December 2008.

The Georgia Department of Labor announced today that Georgia’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dipped to 8.4 percent in March, the lowest rate since December 2008.

The rate declined from 8.6 percent in February because of an increase in the number of jobs and fewer new layoffs. The rate was down from 9.1 percent in March a year ago.

“Georgia employers created 23,700 jobs last month, which is one of the best job growth numbers we’ve had in March for almost a decade,” said State Labor Commissioner Mark Butler. “The growth was in several industries, led by leisure and hospitality and professional and business services.”

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Additional growth came in trade, transportation and warehousing, construction and local government. The March growth pushed the number of jobs to 3,997,100, up from 3,973,400 in February.

Fewer residents of the metro Atlanta area filed unemployment insurance claims in March than did in February. While the number of new layoffs dropped by approximately 10 percent in Cherokee, Forsyth, Fulton and Paulding counties, and was down 16 percent in Bartow County, the numbers weren't as good in other counties. In Cobb the decrease was just 2.2 percent, but in Douglas the number of claims filed increased – though that was just 3 more people filing in March than did in February.

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Still, despite the encouraging numbers, there were thousands of more people filed unemployment insurance claims last month:

      County            # New
                         Claims Filed

  • Bartow             405
  • Cherokee         546
  • Cobb            2,003
  • Douglas           512
  • Forsyth            321
  • Fulton           2,984
  • Paulding           416
  • Georgia       36,983

The number of long-term unemployed workers declined for the 11th consecutive month. It fell 6,500 to 181,100 in March, its lowest level since January 2010. The long-term unemployed—those out of work for more than 26 weeks—make up 44.5 percent of those unemployed in Georgia.


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