Metro Atlanta jobless rate falls to 5 percent

The Georgia Department of Labor announced today that Metro Valdosta’s unemployment rate in August was 5.1 percent, down three-tenths of a percentage point from 5.4 percent in July. Over the year, claims were up by 84, or 11.4 percent, from 735 in August 2015.

The upbeat initial jobless claims data came a day after the U.S. central bank left interest rates unchanged but strongly signalled it could raise borrowing costs by the end of the year, citing a recent pickup in economic growth and continued progress in the labour market.

In the a year ago, Davidson County unemployment has dropped 0.7 percent.

The number of jobs increased by 200, or 0.3 percent, to 68,500. The number of employed residents decreased by 1,696 to 174,373, while the number of unemployed residents fell by 223 to 9,051. Most of the job gains came in education and health services, along with trade, transportation and warehousing.

Davidson County is tops among the state’s four largest metros, besting Knoxville’s Knox County (4.3 percent), Chattanooga’s Hamilton County (5 percent) and Memphis’ Shelby County (5.7 percent).

The number of initial claims for unemployment insurance declined by 844, or 54 percent, to 719 in August. Most of the decrease came in manufacturing and administrative and support services, which includes temporary staffing agencies.

“And (the) reason why that makes sense is that, even though you saw (the) labor force decrease and the number of employed people decrease, we also saw the number of people who were unemployed decrease, which shows you that it wasn’t an issue of the area losing employment”. It was 5.6 percent in August 2015.

Elsewhere in Georgia, the Gainesville area had the state’s lowest area jobless rate at 4.4 percent.

Initial weekly unemployment claims declined by 8,000 to reach 252,000, according to the Department of Labor. It was 5.6 percent in August 2015. In August, 563 new job openings in Valdosta were posted on Employ Georgia.