Unemployment claims spike in Georgia

Layoffs apparently spiked last month in Georgia, taking the largest one-year leap since October of 2001, the state Labor Department said Thursday.

In August, 59,090 Georgians filed first-time claims for unemployment insurance, up 72 percent from the same month a year earlier.

“The advantage that Georgia had — compared to the national averages — has evaporated,” said Emily Sanders, president of Sanders Financial Management in Norcross. “And the trend line is pointing in a negative direction.”

Payrolls of both nation and state have shed jobs, sending millions of laid-off workers to unemployment offices in the past year while the official U.S. jobless rate has climbed to 6.1 percent.

Although data are just numbers, it is people who look for work and are worried, said Jodie Charlop, founder of Atlanta-based Potential Matters, which offers executive coaching and career management. “Over the past month or two, I have seen even my optimistic clients getting a little more fearful.”

Charlop, who counsels both those with jobs and without, said she tells people to stay hopeful, but to be realistic.

“My clients that are unemployed, their searches have taken longer than they have anticipated,” she said. “So we are talking about interim strategies — like, when do we have to talk about Plan B?”

When it comes to the labor market, jobless claims are often seen as the leading edge of data: First-time filings reflects the number of people who have just lost jobs — or run out of severance pay. Georgia has, for the most part, roughly paralleled the increase in claims seen nationally.

U.S. numbers also bad

The national figures, also announced Thursday, are released with less of a lag than statewide figures. And during the last week, 445,000 jobless claims were filed across the country, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Thanks to flukes — school schedules, plant closings, hurricanes — that number sometimes briefly peaks or plummets. So economists often use a longer period to smooth out the statistical ridges.

Unfortunately, the four-week average, too, signals trouble, edging up to 440,000. That is roughly a 36 percent increase from a year ago, when the four-week average was running at about 324,000.

Even in good times, millions of workers each month leave jobs. But in good times, that pool of job seekers is soaked up as fast as it fills.

Not of late. Of laid-off workers who had already filed, about 3.525 million are receiving benefits. A year ago, about 2.585 million were in that category. That figure shows it getting harder and harder for laid-off workers to find another job.

The 72 percent increase in new Georgia claims since last year is the largest year-to-year increase since the layoffs that followed the terror attacks of Sept. 11, said state Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond.

“Throughout the state, tens of thousands of hardworking Georgians are being laid off because of deteriorating economic conditions,” Thurmond said.

Paying in trade

In a separate announcement, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis announced Thursday that imports exceeded exports in July by $62.2 billion.

But the reports are related, since the trade deficit damages growth, argued economist Peter Morici of the University of Maryland. “The trade deficit creates an enormous drag on demand for U.S.-made goods and services.”

Meanwhile, the continued crisis in credit has many lenders unwilling to loan money, while the housing market continues its long slide.

The availability of cash in real estate has dropped dramatically, according to an index released by Raleigh-based Sageworks, a financial analysis company.

In Georgia, claims come most commonly from people losing jobs in manufacturing, construction, trade and services, according to Thurmond.

Local claims soar

In metro Atlanta, claims were up 75 percent from the same month a year ago: In August of 2007, 16,407 workers filed first-time claims. Last month, 28,696 first-time claims were filed.

No metro area in Georgia saw filings decline from August 2007 to last month. The highest jump came in Gainesville, where new claims doubled, from 471 to 945. The smallest increase came in Rome, where new claims were 16.7 percent higher than a year earlier.

While other factors are at work, the job market in Georgia is hinged to real estate, Sanders said. “I expect that the trend will continue until real estate hits bottom, and that looks like it may be mid-2009.”

RECENTLY ANNOUNCED LAYOFFS

METRO ATLANTA LAYOFFS ‘08
Top 10 reported to Georgia Labor Department