Metro Atlanta’s unemployment rate rose from 4.8 percent in December to 5.2 percent in January, a month that almost always sees the rate climb due to post-holiday job cuts.
The region lost 36,200 jobs during the month, the state Labor Department said.
Overall, despite several months of volatility in the stock market, the picture is encouraging, said Ed Hyland, Atlanta-based global investment specialist with J.P. Morgan Private Bank.
“Atlanta seems to be – both from looking at the numbers and anecdotally – doing pretty well,” he said. “I look out my window and see cranes. And you walk into restaurants and they’re crowded. I think that’s a positive indication.”
The stock market’s slide started soon after the Federal Reserve nudged short-term interest rates higher. It was also driven by worry about the Chinese and European economies.
The next few months will show whether the market’s wobbling has been an astute forecast or just a case of nerves.
Hyland said global trends are mostly rattling companies with overseas operations.
“Where it hurts the U.S. economy is in earnings. Global activity has more of an effect on the earnings of the S&P 500 than it does on GDP. We don’t think global problems could pull the U.S. economy into a recession, but it could pull the S&P 500 into an earnings recession.”
The U.S. economy may not be surging, but its progress seems steady, he said.
“It’s as if the market is anticipating that the United State is going to go into a recession and we don’t see that happening. It may be weak economic growth, but it will be stable. I won’t take off.”
January’s jobless rate hike was bigger than usual for the month. But the job loss was smaller; during the previous five Januarys, metro Atlanta lost an average of 41,000 jobs.
When the government calculates the jobless rate, it only includes people who are actively searching for work. In January, metro Atlanta had about 147,000 people in that category.
The Labor Department reported 21,224 new claims for unemployment insurance in the region during the month. The job losses came from a range of sectors: Among the losers were retail, transportation and warehousing, and manufacturing. Even education and health care slimmed down.
Nearly the only sector of the economy that added jobs was accounting and tax preparation – perhaps in expectation of the income tax season that climaxes April 15.
A year ago, the jobless rate in metro Atlanta was 6.2 percent. During the 12 months that followed, metro Atlanta added 88,400 jobs.
That is weaker than the previous year, but better than any other January-to-January count since 1994.
The Atlanta rate is now back above the national rate, where it has been for nearly every month since the recession started in late 2007. The U.S. rate is 4.9 percent.
But national rates are adjusted to account for seasonal patterns. Metro rates are not.
Eight years after the economy slipped into recession and five years after job growth began again, metro Atlanta’s recovery is still unbalanced. Compared to the pre-recession peaks, there are about 147,500 more jobs but only 44,000 more people working.
That is a sign that many of the jobs are part-time or poorly paid and that some people are working more than job.
In November 2007, the month before recession began, the unemployment rate for metro Atlanta was 4.4 percent.
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