Just about everywhere in the state added jobs in June, according to a release last week from Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler. Most cities added jobs and some set records, including Atlanta, Warner Robins, Savannah, Gainesville and Brunswick.
“June was a very strong month for Georgia,” Butler said. “A number of local communities set records as the state added more than 20,000 jobs. Plus, we continued to add to our labor force and see the number of unemployment claims fall. Our local communities continue to prosper.”
Metro Atlanta added employed residents, labor force and jobs. Unemployment claims were also down across the 29-county metropolitan statistical area. The metro region ended June with 2.84 million jobs, an increase of approximately 7,600 for the month, and up 53,500 from the previous year.
As the national unemployment rate ticked up 0.1 percentage points to 3.7%, Georgia dipped 0.1% to the national average of 3.7%. That is up 0.4 percentage points but better than a year ago when it was at 4.2%.
The overall labor force in the metro Atlanta region is now just over 3 million, at 3.09 million. According to Employ Georgia, the Georgia Department of Labor’s official job listing service, there were a little more than 56,000 job postings in metro Atlanta for June.
Statewide, Georgia added 20,200 jobs, bringing the total to 4.61 million jobs – understating the impact and share that the metro Atlanta region has on the Georgia economy.
There were four sectors that added more than 2,000 jobs in June:
- Education/health services, 3,600
- Information, 2,900
- Professional/business services, 2,700
- Leisure/hospitality, 2,200.
As opposed to the metro Atlanta labor force, the statewide labor force dropped by some 1,500 to a total of 5.1 million – a figure that is still higher than the same time a year ago.
“It’s one of those things you take a look at and at first, we’d like to see more individuals join the labor force, but one of the side effects not growing as much as it has in previous years, is that we’ve seen that total number of unemployed, which had gotten kind of stagnant, we’ve seen that decrease fairly significantly over the last six months,” said Butler. “Now we’re starting to get into some of those individuals who have been unemployed for a little bit longer. We’re starting to dig into those that are harder to employ.” The number of unemployment claims are their second lowest in 45 years.
The news comes as the Department of Labor gets set to host another job fair, this one in Dalton on Wednesday. The department is partnering with Advantage Resourcing and will be looking to fill more than 150 positions. Interested job seekers can visit employgeorgia.com to create an account in preparation or submit a resume.
Another job fair will be held August 8th in Glennville.
