John Gooch files for unemployment at the Georgia Department of Labor office in Dalton, Ga.Unemployment in Georgia last month fell to the lowest level since July 2008 after employers added 157,400 jobs in the past year.
The Georgia Department of Labor said today that the state's seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate for February was 6.3 percent, down a tenth of a percent sine January.
Georgia's jobless rate last month remained above the U.S. rate of 5.5 percent. But employment in the Peach State grew by a strong 3.8 percent, or 157,800 net new jobs, from February 2013 to February 2014. That growth pace is more than 50 percent faster than the U.S. employment growth rate of 2.4 percent.
"We hit a historical high for jobs in Georgia this February, which helped push our unemployment rate down to 6.3 percent," Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said. "Our over-the-year job growth was the most we've had since the height of the Atlanta Summer Olympics in July 1996."
Georgia added a seasonally-adjusted 25,400 jobs during February. Over the past year, the strongest job gains came in trade, transportation and warehousing with 37,000 new jobs, or 4.3 percent; leisure and hospitality, 29,900, or 7.1 percent; professional and business services, 29,400 or 4.9 percent; education and health services, 21,500, or 4.2 percent. Construction grew by 6,000, or 3.9 percent.