Tennessee and Georgia added jobs at a faster pace than the rest of the country last year, but both states still ended 2014 with a higher unemployment rate than the U.S. average.
Unemployment in Tennessee fell last month by two-tenths of a percentage point to 6.6 percent, while Georgia’s jobless rate last month fell by three-tenths of a percentage point to 6.9 percent.
“This was the first time in eight years that we’ve had job growth in December,” Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said.
But both Tennessee and Georgia continued to have unemployment rates last month well above the U.S. as a whole, which averaged a 5.6 percent jobless rate in December.
Despite the higher unemployment rates in both states — based upon household surveys conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — the number of employed people rose by 2.7 percent last year in Georgia and 2.4 percent in Tennessee. Those job gains added a combined 174,400 jobs in the two states from December 2013 to December 2014.