Metro Atlanta’s unemployment rate rose 0.1 percentage point in June, the state Department of Labor said Thursday.
Here’s what is going on:
— Employers were not hiring workers. The number of jobs fell by 3,500 from May to June, about double the number usually lost in an average June, the labor department said. There are now a total of 2,579,300 jobs in metro Atlanta.
— The sectors that added employees included professional and business services and information technology.
— There were job losses in education, health services, government and the hospitality sector.
— Employers laid off more people. There was a 14.4 percent increase in first-time claims for unemployment benefits from May to June.
— Over the past year, the metro area has added 77,300 jobs. That brought the unemployment rate down from 7.3 percent in June of last year.
And two bonus facts to chew on: Atlanta’s rate is still considerably higher than the 5.3 percent national average. It has been higher than the U.S. average since late 2007, just as the recession was beginning.
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