Mark Campbell, franchise owner with Manpower, poses for a portrait in the Chattanooga Times Free Press studio Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2015, in Chattanooga, Tenn.Jobless in August
The unemployment rate last month, compared with July was: - 4.4 percent in Tennessee - up 0.1 percent - 4.9 percent in Georgia - down 0.1 percent - 4.9 percent nationwide - unchanged from the previous month Sources: Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development
After nearly nine years of above-average unemployment in Tennessee and Georgia, the jobless rates in both Southern states fell to match or fall below the U.S. average last month for the first time since 2007.
The Georgia Department of Labor said Thursday unemployment in the Peach State dipped below 5 percent in August for the first time since October 2007, before the Great Recession rattled Georgia's housing-based economy. After peaking at 10.5 percent in the fall of 2009, Georgia's jobless rate dropped by more than half and fell to 4.9 percent in August - matching the U.S. jobless rate last month.
Unemployment in August edged up a tenth of a percentage point in Tennessee, but the state's 4.4 percent jobless rate was still a half percent below the rest of the country. Tennessee's jobless rate has dropped by more than 60 percent from the 11.1 percent jobless peak reached in the summer of 2009.
"It's taken a while to restore things the way they were before the Great Recession, but Georgia was hit harder than most states during the downturn and it's taken longer to fully recover," said Jeff Humphreys, the director of the Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia. "But now we're seeing Georgia's manufacturing continue to expand as U.S. manufacturing is currently slowing. That's mostly because we've brought in a lot of major new manufacturing projects and that, in turn, has attracted more population growth into the state and helped our housing industry."
Over the past year, Georgia employers have added 104,000 jobs. The state's 2.4 percent growth in employment in the past 12 months was nearly 50 percent faster than the U.S. growth pace of 1.7 percent in the same period, and Humphreys said he expects that above-average growth pace in Georgia to continue.
"This is the first time in nine years that Georgia's unemployment rate has been as low as the national rate," Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said. "When we look back to that time, we see that our job market has made significant improvements, not only as far as the rate is concerned, but we also have more jobs and more people employed than ever before."
Tennessee's job growth has not been as strong as Georgia in the past year, but its recovery was better immediately after the recession ended and the jobless rate in the Volunteer State has been below the U.S. rate for the past six months. Tennessee employers added 64,000 jobs over the past year for a healthy 2.2 percent annual employment growth rate, well above the 1.7 percent U.S. growth pace.
Employment in both Tennessee and Georgia is now at an all-time high.
With the increase in employment and drop in joblessness, employers say they are often having a harder time filling jobs and are having to boost wages to keep or recruit workers.
Hourly wages in Tennessee in the past 12 months for manufacturing workers were up an average 6.6 percent, or $1.15 more per hour, from $17.36 an hour in August 2015 to $18.51 an hour average last month, according to state wage figures released Thursday.
"We've got lots of opportunities, but it's a real challenge to get enough workers," said Mark Campbell, owner of the local Manpower franchise who operates three offices filling primarily light industrial jobs in Chattanooga, Cleveland and LaFayette, Ga. "I've been doing this now for nearly 24 years and this is one of our more challenging markets right now. In the fall there is always more seasonal hiring and that makes the competition for workers that much tougher."
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfree press.com or at 423-757-6340.