Unemployment Rate In Georgia Mountains Region Drops

The unemployment rate in the Georgia Mountains region dropped to 5.7 percent in April.

 

That’s down from 5.9 percent in March.

 

State Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said the drop is significant from this time a year ago.

 

“Well in the Georgia Mountains region we saw the unemployment rate decrease from last month’s 5.9% down to 5.7%, which by the way is a little over a point difference from this same time last year when we were looking at 6.9%. The biggest reason for the rate decreasing this past month had to do with the fact that we saw 619 more people go back to work. Also, importantly, we saw initial claims, which signifies the amount of new individuals who were laid off, decrease by 4%.”

There were 1,561 new claims for unemployment insurance filed in April – down from 1,622 in March.

 

Butler said there are three main areas where Georgia saw the biggest reduction last month in new lay-offs, but he said some Northeast Georgia counties are still struggling with higher than average unemployment.

 

“Well, the three main areas that we saw layoffs decrease in were construction, retail trade and health care. The highest unemployment rate we saw in the Georgia Mountains regional commission was in Rabun county at .8.5%, while the county with lowest unemployment rate was Forsyth with 5.1%.”

 

In Franklin County, the unemployment rate for April stood at 7.4% – down only slightly from 7.5% in March.

 

Franklin County’s total labor force in April was 9,594 – of that, 709 workers were receiving unemployment benefits.

 

In Hart County, the unemployment rate last month was 7.8% – down from 8.1% in March.

 

Hart County’s total labor force in April was 9,507 – of that, 741 workers were without a job.

 

In both counties, the total labor has continued to drop from a year ago meaning workers are either leaving the county to find work or have given up looking altogether.

 

Meanwhile, Georgia’s overall seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for April was 7.0 percent, unchanged from March.

 

The rate was 8.3 percent in April a year ago.