Georgia unemployment rate holds at 9.2%

In a surprising spark of hope, Georgia’s unemployment rate was unchanged in March, holding steady at 9.2 percent, the state Labor Department said Thursday.

It was the first time in 20 months the rate did not rise from the month before, and it came after weeks of warnings that a weakening job market would soon drive unemployment above 10 percent.

“With apologies to Sir Winston Churchill, the better-than-expected March jobless rate does not represent the end of this recession,” said State Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond. “It is not even the beginning of the end. However, it may be the end of the beginning of the most severe economic downtown since the Great Depression.”

The damage thus far has been painful and deep. Georgia has lost about 185,900 jobs — 4.5 percent of Georgia’s total jobs — since March of last year. The first and worst of the cuts came in manufacturing and construction, as the real estate bubble burst, sales slowed and building mostly stopped.

But after the financial markets froze in late summer and the government rushed to rescue some huge lenders with hundreds of billions of dollars in bailouts, the layoffs spread into a range of other jobs.

Compared to last year’s levels, the state has lost jobs in virtually all sectors except government and education.

As job markets deteriorate, many laid-off workers become discouraged and stop searching for work. When they drop out, they are no longer counted as unemployed — a dynamic that sometimes keeps the official jobless rate lower.

Even so, the rate has been rising and has been expected to keep going up for months.

Thurmond had previously predicted that the jobless rate would climb into double digits in March or April. And while one month’s pause is not proof that improvement is around the corner, it at least raises hope that the pain will not grow much worse.

The jobless rate for February was originally reported as 9.3 percent, but was revised down to 9.2 percent in today’s report.

Georgia has been hit harder than most states. Even at 9.2 percent, the jobless rate for March remains about a percentage point higher than the national rate. It is higher than has been reported for Georgia since jobless data was standardized in the mid-1970s.

Layoffs continue to be high. Last week the state Labor Department reported that new claims for unemployment benefits jumped 126 percent in March.