Employers in metropolitan Dalton, Ga., boosted employment last month by 1,173 jobs last year to cut the jobless rate from 6 percent at the end of 2016 to 5.5 percent last month.
The Georgia Department of Labor said today that Dalton’s jobless rate still rose in December by two-tenths of a percent from November’s rate of 5.3 percent and Dalton’s rate remained well above the U.S. rate of 4.1 percent and the statewide Gerogia rate of 4.3 percent at the end of 2017.
But Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler today still called 2017 “a banner year for job creation, employment and work force gains” in the Dalton area.
“This is a very good year for the Dalton area,” Butler said. “All of the major indicators trended in the right direction. I’m expecting the same will continue in 2018.”
From its peak unemployment rate of 13.6 percent near the end of 2010, the jobless rate in Dalton has dropped by nearly 60 percent over the past seven years coming out of the Great Recession.
Dalton, the self-proclaimed “Carpet Capital” of the world, produces more than two thirds of all carpets and rugs made in the United States.
Among the 14 metro areas in Georgia, Dalton continued to have the highest unemployment rate last month. The jobless rate was lowest in metro Gainesville, Ga., where unemployment fell to 3.5 percent in December.
Metro Dalton includes Whitfield County, where the jobless rate last month rose by three tenths of a percentage point to 5.4 percent, and Murray County, where unemployment increased by two tenths of a percent to 5.8 percent.
In Northwest Georgia, unemployment at the end of 2017 was lowest in Dade County at 3.9 percent, down from 4.1 percent in November.