Staff photo by John Rawlston/Chattanooga Times Free Press - Georgia Department of Labor's Dalton Career Center is located on Chattanooga Avenue.Unemployment in the Dalton, Ga., area fell last month to its lowest monthly level in eight years as the Carpet Capital added jobs over the past year at nearly double the statewide pace for all of Georgia.
The Georgia Department of Labor said today that metropolitan Dalton added a net 500 jobs last month and 2,100 jobs over the past 12 months, cutting the local jobless rate in the Dalton area by another tenth of a percentage point to 6.6 percent - the lowest rate for Dalton since June 2008.
Among Georgia's 14 metropolitan areas, Dalton was the only metro area to record a drop in the non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate during May.
A year ago, Dalton's unemployment rate was 8.1 percent. The jobless rate has trended lower in Dalton since peaking during the 2009 recession at a record high 14 percent.
Dalton was one of the hardest hit metro areas in the South during the housing slump because of its dependence upon the carpet and floorcovering industry, which shrunk by more than a third during the Great Recession. But over the past two years, Dalton has had the biggest drop in unemployment of any Georgia metro area.
Despite the decline in joblessness, however, unemployment in Dalton remained above the comparable, non-seasonally adjusted rate of 6.1 percent for all of Georgia in May and was well above the comparable U.S. rate of 5.3 percent last month.
The jobless rate in Dalton fell as the number of new layoffs dropped, while the number of jobs increased.
The number of initial claims for unemployment insurance in Dalton declined by 414, or 44.4 percent, to 519 in May. Most of the decrease came in manufacturing, health care and social assistance, and retail trade, transportation and warehousing. Over the year, claims were down by 124, or 19.3 percent, from 643 filed in May 2014.
The number of jobs in Dalton increased by 500, or 0.7 percent, to 68,800 in May. Most of the gains came in manufacturing and trade, transportation and warehousing.
And, there was an over-the-year gain of 2,100 jobs, or 3.2 percent, from 66,700 in May 2014. Most of the job growth came in manufacturing, trade, transportation and warehousing, and professional and business services.
Metropolitan Dalton includes Whitfield and Murray counties.