Unemployment in the Dalton area fell to its lowest level in seven years last month after employers in Whitfield and Murray counties added 2,300 jobs in the past year.
The Georgia Department of Labor said today that the jobless rate in metro Dalton fell three tenths of a percent during April to 6.7 percent.
This is the lowest the rate has been since June 2008 when it was 6.6 percent. The rate in April 2014 was 7.7 percent.
The rate declined as employers laid off fewer workers. The number of initial claims for unemployment insurance declined by 533, or 36.4 percent, to 933 in April, down from 1,466 in March.
The number of jobs in Dalton was unchanged at 68,400 from March to April. However, there was an over-the-year gain of 2,300 jobs, or 3.5 percent, from 66,100 in April 2014. Most of the job growth came in textiles and other manufacturing industries, along with trade, transportation and warehousing, and professional and business services.
Dalton's non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate remained well above the statewide rate in Georgia of 5.8 percent last month.
Among Georgia's 14 metropolitan cities, the jobless rate was lowest in Gainesville at 4.7 percent and highest in Albany at 6.9 percent