Georgia jobless rate drops for third straight month

Georgia’s unemployment rate dipped slightly in June to 10 percent, but workers continue to struggle to find jobs and many may have given up the search.

The Georgia Department of Labor opened a decidedly mixed bag of job news Thursday. Despite a surge of high school and college graduates into the workforce, and the dismissal of thousands of U.S. census workers, the jobless rate declined for the third straight month. In March, for example, 10.5 percent of Georgians were jobless.

But, yet again, the number of long-term unemployed Georgians rose in June. Virtually one of every two unemployed Georgians has been without work for at least 27 weeks.

And worse, according to Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond, many of the long-term jobless have simply quit looking.

“The decline in the unemployment rate is primarily a result of some 18,000 Georgians leaving the workforce and becoming discouraged,” Thurmond said. “And, for the first time in several months, we’ve had negative job growth. The trend lines are troubling. The recovery, particularly in the job market, is losing momentum here in Georgia.”

The state’s labor force – those employed and those actively seeking employment – shrunk by 17,953 jobs between May and June. That was the largest month-to-month decline since May 2001, after the dot-com bust.

Equally troubling, to Thurmond and others, is the continued rise in the long-term unemployed. In April, 43.1 percent of unemployed Georgians hadn’t had a job in at least six months. In June, 49 percent hadn’t.