Downtown Dalton, Ga.The unemployment rate in metropolitan Dalton fell last month to the lowest level in nearly seven years after the Carpet Capital added jobs at a rate more than twice the pace of the country as a whole.
The Georgia Department of Labor announced today that the jobless rate in metro Dalton in March fell by a tenth of percent to 7 percent. That was the lowest unemployment rate since August 2008 when Dalton's unemployment rate was 6.9 percent.
March's jobless rate in Dalton was half the 14 percent rate in the metro area during the worst of the Great Recession in 2009 when Dalton was one of the hardest hit metro areas in the country for job losses.
Last month's jobless rate declined as floorcovering manufacturers and other employers created more jobs. During March, Dalton area employers added 400 jobs, bringing the gain in employment in Dalton to 3,000 jobs over the past year. The 4.6 percent gain in employment in Dalton over the past 12 months was more than double the U.S. growth pace.
Despite the drop in unemployment, however, the number of initial claims for unemployment insurance in Dalton rose by 189, or 14.8 percent, to 1,466 in March, which is up from 1,277 in February.
Across Gerogia, metro Gainesville had the lowest area jobless rate at 4.9 percent, while the Heart of Georgia-Altamaha region had the highest at 7.8 percent.
Georgia's seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate for March was 6.3 percent, unchanged from February. It was 7.3 percent in March 2014.