Metro Atlanta’s unemployment rate rose from 8 percent in November to 8.4 percent in December, a not-uncommon increase at year’s end as retailers and schools trim payrolls.
Despite the gain, the numbers hold cause for optimism: the region’s labor force — people employed or looking for a job — grew by nearly 6,200 during the month, the state Labor Department reported Thursday. The growth suggests many long-term unemployed are renewing job searches, boosting the size of the labor force.
Kurt Pieper, who lost his wine distribution job in 2010, recently stepped-up his search. Pieper painted houses, cut grass and did whatever was necessary to pay bills. A rise in job postings, and a sparser-than-usual waiting room at the state unemployment office on North Druid Hills Road, convinced the Atlanta resident the economy is improving.
“There’s work out there,” said Pieper, 42. “I see good things.”
Still, the rise in metro unemployment, coupled with a smaller boost in the statewide rate reported last week, have Georgia’s numbers moving upward again. Until December the metro rate had declined since July, when it was 8.6 percent.
And the November-to-December increase is the largest end-of-year rise since 2008 when the Great Recession raged.
Nationally, the unemployment rate was 7.8 percent for December.
“Certainly, it’s not the direction we want to be moving in, but one month doesn’t make a trend,” said Roger Tutterow, an economist at Mercer University. “The labor markets are still sluggish, and most job seekers say it’s still soft, but we are working our way forward.”
Since the recession technically ended in June 2009, jobs have been added more months than not. A year ago December, 2,334,100 metro Atlantans had jobs in the public and private sectors. Roughly 37,000 jobs have since been added region-wide.
Private companies in metro Atlanta added 44,600 jobs the last year, a 2 percent increase, but that was offset by public sector cuts.
“We’re hearing from employers all over the state and they’re searching for talent right now,” Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said. “You see more and more stories of people lining up at job expos or getting hired and other say, ‘Hey, there are jobs out there and the economy is starting to improve.’”
Sharhonda Porter lost her telecommunications job in June 2011 and, after a financially draining stay-at-home stint, recently started looking again.
“Usually, at the beginning of the year, companies re-do their budget and start hiring people,” Porter, 35, said at the unemployment office. “It’s been my experience that there’s always more in the first few months of the year. At the end they’re too worried about getting their bonuses” and cut jobs.
Trucking firms, wholesalers and utility companies trimmed jobs last month, the state reported. So did internet service providers and food and durable goods manufacturers. Because of the holiday break, education service workers — teachers, bus drivers and maintenance workers — took the biggest hit percentage-wise, losing 2,200 jobs last month.
In years past, these workers were eligible for jobless benefits during temporary layoffs at Christmas and during the summer. Butler halted the payments a year ago. The U.S Labor Department later sided with the workers and ordered Butler to pay them. He refused.
Butler said Thursday he awaits a decision on the issue from the federal agency.
