Unemployment dropped by a tenth of a percentage point last month in Georgia as employers across the Peach State continued to hire at a faster pace than the U.S. as a whole.
But coming out of the state's worst downturn in decades, Georgia's 5 percent jobless rate in July was still slightly above the U.S. rate of 4.9 pecent.
The Georgia Department of Labor (GDOL) announced today that the state's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in July was down 0.1 percent from June and was 0.7 percent lower than a year ago.
"The unemployment rate dropped as Georgia employers hired more people and created more jobs," said State Labor Commissioner Mark Butler. "Many employers are turning to Employ Georgia, our online recruiting service to post their new job openings and recruit employees."
Georgia's over-the-year job growth remained strong as the state gained 116,200 jobs, a 2.7 percent growth rate, from July 2015 to July 2016. The national job growth rate was 1.7 percent.
Most of the job gains in Georgia during the past year came in professional and business services, 32,200; trade, transportation and warehousing, 24,800; leisure and hospitality, 19,800; education and health services, 15,800; construction, 12,400; manufacturing 8,600; government, 4,700; and financial activities, 4,500. Information services lost 5,900 jobs.
Despite the overall job gains, the number of Georgians filing for unemployment benefits in July was up 0.4 percent from a year ago with 35,639 workers filing initial claims for jobless assistance last month. Even as more jobs open up, others continue to be phased out, experts said.
In Whitfield County, unemployment claims in July jumpedby 12.7 percent from a year ago and jobless claims were up 59.2 percent in Murray County. The Dalton metro area continues to have higher unemployment rates due to the slower recovery in the carpet industry.