Georgia employers continued to add jobs at a faster pace than the national average during October, cutting the jobless rate in the Peach State last month to its lowest level in seven and a half years.
But the 5.7 percent unemployment rate for October in Georgia was still well above the 5.1 percent U.S. rate last month as Georgia continued to come back from its worst employment slump in the post World War II era.
The Georgia Department of Labor said today that employers across the state added 29,000 jobs in October and 97,100 jobs over the past year. Georgia's 2.3 percent growth in jobs over the past year exceeded the U.S. average of 2 percent in the past 12 months.
Georgia's seasonally-adjusted jobless rate fell to 5.7 percent in October, down from 5.8 percent the previous month and 6.8 percent in October, 2014.
"A strong over-the-month increase of 29,000 jobs helped push our unemployment rate to its lowest level in seven-and-a-half years," Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said. "This year's September-to-October job growth is much stronger than the 16,600 job growth average for the same period over the last three years."
The number of jobs increased to 4,302,800, up by 0.7 percent, from September. Much of the job growth came in trade, transportation and warehousing, 6,800; professional and business services, 6,400; state and local government, 4,800; manufacturing, 3,100; leisure and hospitality, 2,800; financial activities, 2,700; education and health services, 1,100; information services, 800; construction, 600; and other services, such as repair, maintenance, personal and laundry services, 200.
The number of initial claims for unemployment insurance, a measure of new layoffs, rose by 2,701 or 10 percent, to 29,629 in October. Most of the rise in October was due to an increase in temporary claims filed in manufacturing, especially in textiles and transportation equipment.