Stock market aside, the year got off on a modestly hopeful note as Georgia’s unemployment rate dipped from 5.5 percent to 5.4 percent in January, the state Labor Department announced.
The jobless rate, down from 6.3 percent a year ago, hit its lowest point since early 2008 when the Great Recession was grinding into gear.
Layoffs during January climbed 5 percent from December, much of that likely post-holiday cuts in retail and factory work, said Mark Butler, state labor commissioner. Job cuts were still down significantly from a year ago, he said.
“Georgia employers continue to add jobs at a stronger pace than the national over-the-year job growth rate,” Butler said. “We had job growth in nine of the eleven major job sectors we track.”
Another positive sign was that the jobless rate slipped even while the labor force grew by 16,580 during the month.
While January hiring was not robust, bigger tests will come over the next several months.
Among those hiring this spring is Hisense North America. The Chinese-based television manufacturer opened a Suwanee office in 2013 which has now grown to 80 employees.
The company’s production – which is in several locations — is managed from Suwanee, where the workforce are white-collar professionals, including engineers, according to Mark Viken, company vice president.
The company expects to add about 20 people to the office this year, he said.
According to Simply Hired, an online employment site, healthcare accounts for four of the five top hiring companies: Emory Healthcare, WellStar Health System, Northside Hospital and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Also in the top five is financial and consulting company Deloitte.
January typically sees both post-holiday layoffs in retail and start-of-the-year corporate hiring. The balance of the two sometimes swings toward losses – like last year, when the state’s economy shed 6,100 jobs. In January 2014, 10,200 jobs were added.
The worst jobs month during the past decade, when Georgia lost 28,400 jobs, was January 2009.
This time the state barely eked out a gain, adding 100 jobs.
Over the past year, though, more than 100,000 jobs have been added.
That performance, less robust than the year earlier, is still strong and the pace of hiring was better than the national average, Butler said.
The state has 147,500 more jobs than it did prior to the downturn. Yet the number of people working is down more than 100,000 from that previous peak.
That mismatch is a sign that many people are drawing more than one paycheck, perhaps working two part-time jobs. It is also evidence that many of the jobs created are low-wage positions.
Georgia’s jobless rate is still higher than the 4.9 percent national average.
January’s report was delayed several weeks by the annual need to “benchmark” the data by the government’s annual effort to gather updated information and make revisions as needed to previous reports.
The state’s job numbers for February will come in two weeks. The January report on metro Atlanta will be released next Thursday.
About the Author
