The metro Atlanta unemployment rate dropped to 4.6 percent in May, the lowest the rate has been since before the recession started in late 2007.
The rate had been 4.8 percent in April. It is down from 5.8 percent unemployment a year ago. And it is now lower – by 0.1 percentage points – than the national rate.
The improvement was somewhat surprising – and mostly for good reasons.
Here’s what is going on:
1. Employers were hiring at a decent clip.
Roughly 16,800 jobs were added during the month, slightly better than the average growth for the month of May in Atlanta.
2. The Atlanta jobless rate went down even though it usually goes up in May. But unlike the national rate, it didn’t drop because lots of people dropped out of the workforce.
3. Sectors that grew during the month: retail, transportation and warehousing, construction, leisure and hospitality, the corporate sector, education and healthcare.
4. Sectors that lost jobs during the month: manufacturing, government and information.
5. Employers laid off more people, although some of that could be seasonal.
Cuts were up 12.5 percent from April to May, based on new claims for unemployment insurance.
6. It’s always important not to get hung up on one month of data. But the longer arc of the economy continues to look pretty good: during the past year, metro Atlanta has added 76,600 jobs.
That is 61 percent of the jobs added in the state of Georgia during that time.
Bonus discussion:
In the overall U.S. economy, the unemployment rate dropped to a pretty-great sounding 4.7 percent in May. Only that low rate wasn’t the result of job growth, it was because so many people apparently had dropped out of the labor force.
In Atlanta and Georgia, the labor force has continued to grow.
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