Georgia layoffs drive up unemployment numbers

Layoffs took a large leap in the state last month as 128,625 workers filed first-time claims for jobless benefits, the Georgia Labor Department reported Thursday.

Filings were 174 percent higher than during December a year earlier.

Layoffs have swept through manufacturing, construction, and trade industries, as well as office services and temporary staffing agencies, said Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond, who called the latest numbers “stunning and sobering.”

Nearly 43,000 people filed claims in metro Atlanta, a 134 percent increase from a year earlier. But the worst hit were manufacturing areas like Rome and Dalton, where claims are up about 350 percent.

In Georgia, job seekers outnumber openings three to one.

That makes the search frustrating, said Jeannie Cummings, 36, of McDonough. “I am on the computer every day. I’ve probably put out hundreds of resumes. You never hear back from anybody. I haven’t had one phone call. Not one. Not a single response.”

For three-and-a-half years, she worked in the office of a trucking company — where the recession has meant fewer shipments, along with months of record high fuel charges.

“They were doing layoffs pretty much on seniority, and my number came up in September,” Cummings said.

She is looking for something in human resources, dispatching, purchasing, shipping and receiving — “anything at this point,” she said.

Georgia’s job situation has paralleled the nation’s, although state unemployment has been ticking higher than the national average. December’s jobless claims, too, were worse in Georgia than nationally.

According to Sageworks, a Raleigh–based financial analysis firm, the woes of real estate continue to sap sales from other sectors. For instance, sales in residential construction were up 12 percent in 2004, with growth slipping to about zero by 2007 and falling about 2 percent last year.

“Certainly the pullback in housing construction and real estate has a greater impact in Georgia than in other placers,” said Ed Hyland, Atlanta-based global investment specialist for JP Morgan Private Bank.

National jobless claims, which are released weekly, have been at recession levels for months, hitting a high in early December. Claims dipped around the holidays, then climbed last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Thursday.

Jobless claims are the closest thing to a real-time measure of hiring since laid-off workers usually file for benefits shortly after losing their jobs.

New claims have dramatically risen during the past year — a sign that companies are quicker than they used to be at making cuts in troubled times, Hyland said.

“It may be that the you are seeing the bulk of job loss sooner, rather than later,” he said. “The back end of that would be that things would stabilize sooner.”

In Georgia, the official jobless rate in November was 7.5 percent. While December’s state rate has not been released, the national rate rose during the month, to 7.2 percent — and Thursday’s claims data seems to make another uptick in Georgia likely.

For many workers, short-term prospects are daunting.

The unemployment rate typically does not start dropping until after a recession’s end. Meanwhile, nearly one in four of the unemployed has been out of work for at least six months.

Last month, the state Labor Department handled 19,160 applications to extend jobless benefits. More than 111,000 Georgians have asked for that extension since July.

Cummings is getting unemployment benefits of $330 a week, minus taxes. When her 26 weeks of coverage end, she is worried she might need a 13-week extension. Or two.

“Everybody thinks — a year of benefits, I’ll have a job by then. But it’s harder than you think.”