Jobless rate drops in metro Atlanta, growth steady but not smooth
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The jobless rate for metro Atlanta fell in December to its lowest level since 2008, with Forsyth recording the least number of unemployed and Cobb and Gwinnett counties tied for second locally.
The state Labor Department’s announcement Thursday shows the economy has been making modest, but steady progress: Unemployment improved from 7 percent in November and from 8.4 percent a year ago.
The region added 11,192 jobs in December — pushing the unemployment rate to its lowest level since September 2008, the month a stumbling U.S. economy went into free-fall — and 58,900 jobs during 2013.
The dropping rate has been the result of new hiring, along with the abandonment of the job search by thousands of workers going back to school, retiring or staying at home.
The improvement has not been spread evenly around the metro area. Among the metro counties, Forsyth had 5 percent unemployed, currently fourth-lowest in the state; Cobb and Gwinnett checked in with the lowest rate, 6.1 percent; DeKalb County’s rate was 7.2 percent; Fulton’s was 7.5 percent; and Clayton – which was also hit hardest by the recession – still had the region’s highest jobless rate, with 8.7 percent. Oconee had the lowest jobless rate in the state at 3.8 percent; Catoosa, 4.6; and and Echols 4.9.
The indicator in the recovery has been the housing market, said Rajeev Dhawan, director of the Economic Forecasting Center at Georgia State University.
“The highest unemployment levels in metro Atlanta correlated with how much of a housing bust there was,” he said. Now that the economy is healing, the clues are in construction. “By looking at building, you get an idea at how jobs are growing in the county.”
Gwinnett issued 2,924 single-family housing permits last year, while Cobb issued almost 1,600 permits. By comparison, DeKalb issued 336 permits and Clayton just 124, according to Dhawan. Forsyth issued 2,560 permits for single-family homes.
The improving unemployment rate has two sides.
It’s an indication of people departing the workforce. The percentage of Georgians in the workforce has fallen since the recession from 68.1 percent to 62.4 percent. In metro Atlanta, that implies more than 100,000 fewer people either working or looking for work.
But hiring has also picked up.
The Atlanta office of UHY Advisers has hired 15 people in the past year, according to Rebecca Reiss, recruiting manager for the finance, tax and business consulting company. “We just added an employee Monday. And we are looking to add several more.”
The region increasingly looks to new technologies for growth, including many small but ambitious firms with non-traditional business models.
Somedia Solutions Inc. of Roswell, a social media marketing company, has just six workers – and they are not employees, they are contractors, said co-founder and chief strategist Randy Romanaux.
“And we are looking for two more specialists,” he said.
The past year’s job performance was not great historically. From 1992 through 1999, the region – which contained significantly fewer people – added more than 63,000 jobs each year. But it was still encouraging, as well as the best year since 2006, when the economy picked up 68,000 jobs.
“We have almost 59,000 more jobs in the Atlanta area and the good news is, these jobs are spread out over most of the major sectors,” said Mark Butler, state labor commissioner.
