John Gooch files for unemployment at the Georgia Department of Labor office in Dalton, Ga.Seasonal layoffs in manufacturing and schools cut Georgia's employment by 17,900 jobs last month, boosting July's unemployment rate in the Peach State by three tenths of a percent to 9.3 percent -- the highest rate since December.
Georgia's seasonally adjusted jobless rate has risen for the past two months, but Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said the state is seeing some more recent positive trends.
"One of the main reasons for the increase in the unemployment rate (in July) was a large number of temporary layoffs in manufacturing," Butler said. "But many of those people have already gone back to work."
Butler said there were 20,600 jobs lost among seasonal workers in the local public schools across Georgia during July, but some of that loss was offset because the private sector added 5,600 jobs.
Despite the drop in employment last month, Georgia still added 50,600 jobs and boosted overall employment by 1.3 percent from July 2011 to July 2012. A year ago, Georgia's jobless rate was 10 percent in July 2011.
Georgia's jobless rate last month was a full percent higher than the U.S. rate of 8.3 percent.