March job growth for the past decade:
2007 12,000
2008 1,500
2009 -9,800
2010 12,400
2011 15,900
2012 15,100
2013 8,900
2014 31,700
2015 11,500
2016 11,300
March unemployment rate, the past decade (in percent):
2007 3.9
2008 5.1
2009 9.3
2010 10.2
2011 9.7
2012 8.9
2013 7.8
2014 7.0
2015 5.7
2016 5.2
The jobless rate for metro Atlanta fell last month from 5.3 percent to 5.2 percent, while the region’s economy added 11,300 jobs, the Labor Department reported this morning.
Here’s what is going on:
1. Employers were hiring. The economy added 11,300 jobs in March, not bad, but not quite as strong as the average March since the recession. During the previous six years, March averaged a gain of 15,300. The best March metro Atlanta ever had was in 2014, when the economy added 31,700 jobs.
2. More of the unemployed found work. The jobless rate’s drift down to 5.2 percent reflects a decline of 2,801 in the number of people in the region who are unemployed and searching for a job. That is down 10,859 from a year ago when the unemployment rate was 5.7 percent.
At the job market’s lowest points, more than a quarter of a million people were officially unemployed.
3. Hiring was concentrated in a few sectors: leisure and hospitality had the most new jobs, followed by education and health services and government. Also adding some jobs were manufacturing, the corporate sector, construction and logistics.
Pretty much the only sector shedding jobs was information services.
4. Employers laid off 5.2 percent fewer people than in February. Most of the cuts came in in manufacturing and construction. March’s layoffs were down 8.6 percent from March of 2015.
5. Although the past 12 months were not as strong as the two years before, they weren’t bad. Since last March, metro Atlanta has added 77,000 jobs. The region’s growth accounts for most of the jobs added in Georgia.
6. The metro job base has surged by 17 percent – adding 386,500 jobs since the job market bottomed out in early 2010.
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