Despite the addition of 1,400 jobs in the past year, the unemployment rate in the Dalton, Ga., last month rose from February’s level to 6.8 percent – the same rate as a year ago.
The Georgia Department of Labor said today that the jobless rate in metropolitan Dalton in March remained above both the state and nationwide averages. Dalton’s unemployment rate of 6.8 percent in March was up four tenths of a percentage point from the previous month and was well above the comparable U.S. jobless rate of 5.0 percent and Georgia’s statewide rate of 5.5 percent.
Among Georgia’s 14 metropolitan areas, Dalton had the highest jobless rate. The lowest unemployment rate in Georgia last month was in Gainesville at 4.5 percent.
Dalton’s jobless rate in March 2015 was also 6.8 percent.
The unemployment rate rose as the number of initial claims unemployment insurance increased by 473, or 31 percent, to 2,000 in March. Most of the increase was in manufacturing. And, over the year, claims were up by 534, or 36.4 percent, from 1,466 in March 2015.