The jobless rate edged higher across Northwest Georgia at the start of 2022 following the Christmas holiday hiring surge, but unemployment remained below the national average across most of the Peach State in January.
The Georgia Department of Labor said Thursday that the jobless rate in metro Dalton rose in January by seven-tenths of a percentage point to 3.7% – the highest rate since last June. But Dalton’s jobless rate remained below the U.S. rate of 4% in January and 217 more workers were on the job compared with the previous month.
The Dalton area has benefited from the strong housing market, which has pushed up both home starts and remodeling activity along with floorcovering prices during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Over the past year, the self-described Carpet Capital has added 1,951 jobs in the metro Dalton area, boosting employment by nearly 3% over the past 12 months to 57,619 employed residents.
Since the pandemic initially shut down many carpet mills, stores and restaurants, Dalton’s unemployment rate has plunged from a historic high of 19.8% in April 2020 to as low as a 2.2% unemployment rate in November 2021. From the worst of the downturn, Dalton has now regained 9,446 jobs in the metro area, which includes Whitfield and Murray counties. Jobless claims in metro Dalton during January were down 77% from a year ago.
The unemployment rate was even lower just to the north in the Georgia suburbs of Chattanooga. Although up from the record lows reached at the end of 2021, the jobless rate was only 2.6% in Dade County and 2.9% in neighboring Catoosa County in January.
“Even though we continue to see Georgia’s workforce be successfully employed in record-breaking numbers, there is still much more work to do as we continue to see hundreds of thousands of jobs needed to be filled,” Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said in an employment report released Thursday.
Jobless in January
The non-seasonally adjusted jobless rate rose in January across Northwest Georgia, but unemployment in most counties remained below the U.S. rate of 4% at the start of 2022. The January unemployment rate in the Georgia counties in and around the metro Dalton and Chattanooga areas in January were:* Dade, 2.6%, up from 2.3% in December* Catoosa, 2.9%, up from 2.3% in December* Gordon, 2.9%, up from 2.4% in December* Walker, 3.2%, up from 2.6% in December* Whitfield, 3.6%, up from 2.9% in December* Murray, 4.1%, up from 3.2% in December* Chattooga, 4.2%, up from 3.4% in DecemberSource: Georgia Department of Labor
University of Georgia Economist Jeff Humphreys said a pair of events after the January employment numbers were compiled – the Federal Reserve Board’s credit tightening and the Russian invasion of Ukraine – are projected to trim Georgia’s projected economic growth pace this year from 4% to 3% and boost the chances of an actual economic decline from 20% to 40%. But Humphreys is still optimistic labor markets will remain strong and unemployment will remain low through 2022.
“We entered this year very strong with rapid job growth and a low unemployment rate and I’m still expecting employment growth across the state at nearly 3% again this year,” Humphreys said. “The labor market still has a lot of unfilled jobs so while there may be some supply chain interruptions and slowdown due to higher gas prices and interest rates, I don’t think that will be enough this year to push unemployment back up.”
Employ Georgia, the GDOL’s online job listing service at employgeorgia.com, showed about 1,100 active job postings in Dalton for January. ChattanoogaCalling.com, the job and recruitment website set up by the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce, lists 32,341 open jobs, or nearly three times as many jobs as there are unemployed persons looking for work in the 6-county Chattanooga metro area.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6340.