Downtown Dalton, Ga.Unemployment in the Dalton, Ga., area fell to the lowest monthly level in nearly seven years last month as the Carpet Capital continued to rebound from the Great Recession and its aftermath.
The Georgia Department of Labor said today that the jobless rate in metropolitan Dalton fell by eight-tenths of a percentage point in February to 7.1 percent.
Dalton's unemployment rate last month was still 1.6 percentage points above the national jobless rate and 0.7 percentage points above Georgia's statewide rate in February. But unemployment in Dalton last month was the lowest since August 2008 when the worsening housing slump cut the city's biggest industry - carpet manufacturing..
Dalton added a net 200 jobs last month and 3,600 jobs over the past year. Employment in the past year in metro Dalton grew at a healthy 5.6 percent, more than double the U.S. growth pace.
Most of the job gain came in textile manufacturing and state government.
There were 2,737, or 68.2 percent, fewer new claims for unemployment insurance filed in February, as the number decreased to 1,277 from 4,014 in January. Most of the decrease in claims came in manufacturing. Over the year, claims were down by 1,332, or 51.1 percent, from 2,609 filed in February 2014.