Unemployment in the Dalton area rose again last month as the Carpet Capital struggled to cope with a slowdown in carpet sales even amid higher home sales and building starts.
The Georgia Department of Labor announced today that the jobless rate in metropolitan Dalton increased to 6 percent in September, up one-tenth of a percentage point from the 5.9 percent rate in both the previous month and in the same month a year ago.
Dalton's jobless rate rose as the labor force and number of layoffs increased. While Georgia added 118,700 jobs, boosting employment statewide by 2.8 percent in the past year, metro Dalton lost a net 100 jobs in the past 12 months, according to non-seasonally adjusted employment figures released today by the state employment agency.
Dalton has been hurt by a slowdown in carpet sales, which the Dixie Group estimated this week were down 2 percent in the residential sector and are flat or slightly down this year in commercial businesses. Despite improved home starts and building activity this year, a growing share of homeowners are choosing hard surface floorcovering over carpet.
More than two thirds of all carpet manufacturerd in the United States is produced in the Dalton area.
The labor force in the Dalton area increased in September by 491 to 61,525. The labor force in metro Dalton consists of employed residents and those who are unemployed but actively looking for jobs in Whitfield and Murray counties.
While the number of employed in Dalton increased by 453 to 57,857 last month, the number of unemployed also rose by 38 to 3,668, which contributed to the rate hike.
From September 2015 to September 2016, however, Dalton lost 100 jobs, a 0.2 percent loss, down from 68,500 in September 2015. Most of the job loss came in textile manufacturing.
Georgia's statewide seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate for September was 5.1 percent, up from 4.9 percent in August. It was 5.6 percent in September 2015.