The metro Atlanta unemployment rate jumped to 5.3 percent in June, up from 4.5 percent in May, as seasonal layoffs and school graduations swelled the labor force with job-seekers, the government reported today.
A year ago, unemployment was 6.0 percent.
The region's economy lost 5,200 jobs during the month, according to the Georgia Labor Department.
But much of the rate's rise can be pegged to an increase in the labor force – up by 34,136 as students and others came into the job market looking for work.
As always, one month's data can be unreliable, and at this point, the longer arc of the economy still looks good. In the past 12 months, metro Atlanta has added 69,400 jobs.
Moreover, the jobless rate nationally is 4.9 percent, so like a cork on choppy waters, the metro Atlanta rate has bobbed back above the national unemployment rate. That's the way it's been nearly every month since the start of the recession in late 2007.
Here's what is going on:
1. The unemployment rate always goes up in June. In the past two decades, the metro jobless rate has never dropped in June.
2. Summer layoffs seem to be the culprit.
Each June, a flow of new graduates and laid-off school employees pours into the labor pool. And yes, a week ago, the department reported a decline in the Georgia jobless rate to 5.1 percent. But the state rate is adjusted to account for that seasonal pattern and the metro rate is not.
That means that that swelling number of jobseekers is discounted in the state figures, but not in the metro data. The state jobless rate usually does not rise in June, the metro Atlanta rate does.
3. It's usually bad, but this was a little worse than a typical June.
The jump to 5.3 percent looks bad, of course. That's only partly because the May rate was revised down to 4.5 percent. Even so, it's a larger leap than the rate takes in a typical June.
Since 2002, the metro Atlanta economy has added jobs in June twice: in 2006 and 2015.
Roughly 5,200 jobs were lost during the month, so this was the weakest June since 2011.
Want to feel nostalgic? The best June the metro Atlanta economy ever had was 1996 in the run-up to the Olympics, when we added 23,400 jobs.
4. Sectors that grew during the month: leisure and hospitality added 3,700 jobs; manufacturing expanded by 2,300; construction was up 900; and information services grew 700.
5. Sectors that lost jobs during the month: educational and health services shrank by 6,300, and state and local government, including the public schools dropped 4,400 jobs.
6. A lot of the layoffs were seasonal. And actually look better than a year ago.
Cuts were up for the month, based on new claims for unemployment insurance, were down 13.4 percent compared to the same month of 2015.
Bonus discussion:
It's always important not to get hung up on one month of data. And so take a look at the longer arc of the economy: the jobs added during the past year in metro Atlanta - those 69,400 jobs - account for more than half the jobs added in the state of Georgia during that time.
But it is also slower year-over-year growth than the region has shown in any month since August of 2013.
Worth noting: The Labor Department does have a web site pegged to jobseekers.