Unemployment declined across most of Southeast Tennessee and Northwest Georgia during April as the economic recovery continued to boost the job market.
The jobless rate in Dalton, Ga. — one of the hardest hit metropolitan areas in the country during the recession — fell to its lowest level since 2008 last month. But the 10.2 percent unemployment rate in the Dalton area in April was still the highest among Georgia’s 14 biggest metro areas.
The Georgia Department of Labor said employment in metro Dalton grew by 300 jobs during April, primarily from job gains at local carpet mills. Over the past year, however, employment in Dalton was still down by 500 jobs since April 2012. Dalton was the only one of Georgia’s metro areas last month still with double-digit unemployment, reflecting the job losses of more than a fourth of all carpet employment in the so-called Carpet Capital during and just after the Great Recession.
Dalton’s 10.2 percent rate of unemployment during April was still a full 2 percent above the statewide rate of 8.2 percent for the rest of Georgia and nearly 3 percent higher than the U.S rate of 7.5 percent last month.
Chattanooga’s metropolitan jobless rate rose by a tenth of a percent last month to 7.4 percent and was above the year-ago rate of 7.1 percent. Despite improvements in the three metro counties of Chattanooga in Tennessee, the north Georgia bedroom communities in Catoosa, Dade and Walker counties all showed an increase in unemployment.