Georgia’s jobless rate rose last month from 7.2 percent to 7.4 percent, as the state shed jobs at the same time more people were coming into the labor force looking for work.
The state shed 18,000 jobs during June — many of them seasonal school positions that will be refilled next month — while the number of new claims for unemployment insurance jumped 14.2 percent in May, the state Department of Labor said.
“The really good news is that Georgia employers have created 81,100 jobs since last June, which is the largest June-to-June job growth since 2006,” said Mark Butler, state labor commissioner.
Still, after months in which Georgia gradually closed the gap with the lower national jobless rate, the difference is widening again. June was the second month in a row with an uptick in the rate.
The U.S. unemployment rate in June was 6.1 percent.
Those numbers may be a bit misleading, said Jeff Humphreys, director of the Selig Center for Growth at the University of Georgia.
The unemployment rate has gone up in Georgia partly because more people are searching for work, which can be a good sign, he said.
“People become more confident about economic growth. People are getting back into the game.”
A year ago, the state unemployment rate was 8.4 percent, while the national rate was 7.5 percent.
The state’s rate is down from a high of 10.4 percent five years ago during the worst of the recession. But it is still historically high — prior to the Great Recession the rate had not been this high since the early 1980s.
Job creation has been steady, but weak. The state still has fewer jobs than when recession began in late 2007, when the jobless rate was 5.1 percent .
The unemployment rate and job numbers are calculated from different government surveys conducted monthly. If the number of people in the workforce – the number of people with jobs plus people seeking jobs – rises faster than the number of jobs, the unemployment rate goes up.
Georgia’s labor force grew 0.1 percent in the past year. During the same period, the labor force nationally declined by nearly the same amount.
The more people in the job hunt, the worse the odds for every jobseeker.
Angela Aldridge, 53, of Atlanta, has not had a steady job since December, receiving unemployment benefits for a few months. Since then, she’s been taking temporary assignments and living with her daughter.
For 15 years, she has been working in offices handling insurance claims, sometimes from the healthcare side, sometimes from the insurance company side.
“When I went to the agency in 2012, I was taking $17 an hour and above and I thought that was low-balling things. But since then, it seems like everything goes up but your wages.”
Assignments last year paid slightly less. “And now, I am being given an eight-week assignment that offers $13.50 an hour. And it’s for a place up in Marietta, so after the costs of gas, I think it will be like having $10.”
The arrival of summer is often the culprit for weak numbers in June, and it was again this time, with many school employees laid off for the summer, the Labor Department: Nearly all the job losses came from schools and education services, along with pre-school and daycare centers.
Roughly 353,700 Georgians are officially unemployed. About 40 percent of them have been out of work for six months or more, the Labor Department said.
Even if the monthly downturn is only a seasonal pause, the pace of growth is modest by historical standards: a 2.1 percent increase in jobs. But it is stronger than the national pace of just 1.8 percent.
Gains in Georgia came in professional and business services — 27,100 new jobs; trade, transportation and warehousing — 20,400; leisure and hospitality — 18,600; manufacturing — 6,900; construction — 6,400; education and health services — 4,000; information services — 1,900; and financial services — 1,700.
Government lost 5,700 jobs.
The lion’s share of job growth came in metro Atlanta: 58,300 positions during the year. Savannah was second with 3,600 new jobs. The largest loss came in Warner Robins, which dropped 1,100 jobs.
Humphreys said the trends are good, even if the jobless rate has risen for two consecutive months. “I’m still convinced that Georgia is out-performing the nation,” he said.
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