Georgia jobless rate stable for 3rd straight month

New data Thursday told jobseekers what they want to hear — that things are not getting worse. The state’s jobless rate ticked up just a tenth of a percent in April, to 9.3 percent, the state Labor Department said.

“The state unemployment rate has remained virtually unchanged during the past three months,” Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond said. “This suggests that Georgia’s labor market may be beginning to stabilize. However, the verdict is still out.”

While it is the most widely quoted jobs number, the unemployment rate can be an unreliable witness.

The rate is derived from a survey that asks if people are looking for work. Those who have given up or taken part-time work aren’t counted as unemployed.

As a result, the rate can fall when jobs are scarce and people get discouraged from the job search; or it can rise when they resume searching because they think hiring has picked up.

Moreover, the rate often keeps rising after a recession ends. After the 2001 recession, for instance, Georgia’s rate didn’t fall for more than a year.

Some economists say the economy will bottom by mid-year. Virtually none predict an improved job market until next year, but many now say unemployment will stop short of 10 percent.

Rajeev Dhawan, director of the Economic Forecasting Center at Georgia State University, isn’t among them. He projects a 10.4 percent jobless rate next year. He shrugs off short-term numbers as unreliable.

Next month? “It could go to 9.5 and it could go to 9.1 percent,” he said.

More important, in his view, is evidence that the economy is still contracting and that business is still slashing jobs, he said.

“The job market is still falling,” he said. “It has not stabilized. It is pretty nasty.”

Georgia’s economy has lost 5.2 percent of its jobs — 240,000 positions — since August 2007, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

An estimated 446,560 Georgians were looking for work in April, up 60 percent from a year earlier, the state Labor Department said. Hiring might have picked up, but the pool of job-seekers has continued swelling, said Michelle Brewer, senior manager at Ajilon, a staffing company specializing in finance positions.

“We are busier than we were, even last week,” she said. “Clearly some companies are hiring.”

But, she said, the number of positions Ajilon has filled in the past six months is about the same as the number of job-seekers arriving each week looking for work.

Among them is Mary-Louise Johnson of Stockbridge, an experienced manager of accounts payable.

Since being laid off in January, she has scoured the Internet, networked religiously and phoned companies just to introduce herself. She’s interviewed a few times, but so far in vain.

“They tell me they are receiving 120 to 150 resumes for each position,” she said. “If you don’t fit 99 percent of their requirements, they’ll find somebody else.”