Thank God for Mississippi.
If not for the Magnolia State, Georgia would suffer the nation’s worst unemployment rate. As it is, Georgia now ranks 50th — the District of Columbia included — with a jobless rate of 7.8 percent. Mississippi’s rate: 8 percent.
Georgia’s rate has been among the highest since the Great Recession, but the latest ranking is its worst on record. It comes courtesy of a monthly federal report, issued Monday, that compares state jobless rates.
Old-line, liberal-leaning states like Massachusetts, sometimes derided as “Taxachusetts,” and New York are doing better with rates of 5.6 and 6.6 percent, respectively. Rust Belt stalwarts like Illinois, at 6.8, and Ohio, at 5.7, placed above the Peach State.
Even states also hammered by the recession and housing bust, like Florida (No. 28) and Arizona (No. 41), performed better. The overall U.S. rate is 6.2 percent.
Georgia’s level is down from a year ago, but rates have fallen faster in other states. And Georgia’s has ticked back up in recent months.
That has left Mississippi — with an economy one-fourth the size of Georgia’s, the nation’s worst poverty rate and a Confederate emblem still on its flag that some say hurts business — as the only state in Georgia’s rear view mirror.
“Politically, being 50th in unemployment is devastating,” said Brent Lane, director of the Center for Competitive Economies at the University of North Carolina. “And, perceptually, it’s damaging the brand of Georgia. From a marketing standpoint, high unemployment is a very negative thing.”
Monday’s news quickly entered the political arena with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Sen. Jason Carter pillorying opponent Gov. Nathan Deal over the poor employment rate showing.
“Gov. Deal has brought Georgia nearly to the bottom,” Carter said in a statement. But “more than 370,000 Georgians can’t find jobs in Gov. Deal’s economy, and thousands of others have given up looking.”
Deal, who touts two media rankings of Georgia as the nation’s top spot for business, responded that the unemployment rate has dropped each year since he has been in office.
Deal campaign spokesman Jen Talaber suggested Georgia’s slippage in state rankings is due largely to a surge of job seekers, a factor that can push up the jobless rate because more people are counted as seeking work.
“Because of our success in creating new jobs, our work force has continued to grow, which inflates Georgia’s unemployment rate,” she said in a statement. “In contrast, some states have seen their workforces contract and thus have lower unemployment rates.”
Mark Butler, the state’s labor commissioner, also challenged the ranking’s significance.
“Mr. Carter doesn’t want to tout the fact that right now, as of today, we are seventh in net job growth over the last 12 months,” he said.
Sixth, actually, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, with 70,200 jobs added the last year.
The net employment gains, though can’t mitigate Georgia’s need to create tens of thousands of additional jobs to lower the rising unemployment rate. In essence, Georgia’s once-vaunted status as job magnet for the nation’s young, restless or relocating continues to lag, particularly in relation to neighboring states.
During the early 2000s, Georgia’s unemployment rate never dropped below a top 20 ranking, the BLS notes. During the Great Recession, which hit Georgia’s housing and construction industries particularly hard, the rate fell into the 30s.
The state’s recessionary hangover — construction is still well below boomtime levels — relegated Georgia to the 40s. And, now, No. 50.
“I would have expected that Georgia would be doing much, much better than that,” said Matt Murray, associate director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Tennessee. “I’d have to see a couple more months like this – then I would be very concerned.”
An over-reliance on construction jobs, and the steady loss of local, state and federal government work, help explain Georgia’s jobs slide, economists say. But other states too, Florida in particular, depend on housing and the military to goose employment.
In late 2009, for example, Florida’s jobless rate stood at 11.4 percent — a full percentage point higher than Georgia reached during the recession. Florida’s rate last month: 6.2 percent.
North Carolina is similar to Georgia in total population, size of labor force and job mix. A year ago, its jobless rate was 8.1 percent, nearly identical to Georgia’s 8.3 percent. Last month, North Carolina’s rate was 6.5 percent.
Georgia’s jobless rate will likely drop in August, as school bus drivers, cafeteria workers and other private-sector employees temporarily laid off during the summer months get rehired. Retailers too will add jobs for the holidays. But it’s unlikely seasonal rehiring will quickly improve the state’s standing.
Economists say Georgia’s future employment success is inextricably linked to Atlanta’s.
“Want to quickly reduce unemployment in Georgia? Then find ways for the Atlanta metro economy to grow faster in areas like technology, tourism and finance,” said Michael Wald, a former BLS economist in Atlanta. “The smaller metro areas drag down the statewide data.”
— Staff writer Greg Bluestein contributed to this article.
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