Georgia’s jobless rate took its largest month-to-month tumble in 35 years in October, an indication the state’s economy is rebounding after a half-decade of unemployment pain.
The rate dropped from 9 percent in September to 8.7 percent in October, the Georgia Department of Labor reported Thursday. Not since December 1977 has the state rate dipped as much.
Georgia added 36,000 new jobs, according to the report — the largest September-to-October increase since the state began tallying labor records in 1972.
“It’s a good report every way you look at it,” said Jeff Humphreys, a University of Georgia economist. “If this trend holds up, we’ll have a strong finish to the year. But we need to book-end a few more reports like this before I get ecstatic.”
Still, Humphreys and other forecasters expect 2013 to be another weak year before a broader recovery in 2014. They cite the dampening effect of the so-called “fiscal cliff” and economic troubles abroad that hurt exports.
As evidence of the continued pain, 51,495 Georgians filed initial claims for unemployment insurance last month, up nearly 12,000 from September, according to Thursday’s report. Moreover, experts say many newly hired workers are overqualified and underpaid compared to previous jobs.
Just ask Home Depot.
“We’ve had some very qualified people who maybe before would not have been sitting here before us,” said Amy Burch, a Home Depot recruiter interviewing job seekers Thursday at a state-run job center in Marietta. “When you talk to them they say, ‘I just want a job.’ I heard it twice today. They can’t find a job in the market they prefer.”
Burch expected to fill 15 kitchen, flooring and appliance sales positions at Home Depot stores across metro Atlanta. Two weeks ago, she hired 10 others. These were permanent jobs paying $9 to $14 an hour with benefits.
Retail jobs accounted for the highest number — 8,000 — of the new jobs statewide last month, according to the labor department, as holiday hiring began.
Gloria Kusmik, who manages the Cobb-Cherokee labor office, said Sears, Target, WalMart, Best Buy and other retailers need seasonal workers.
Kristen Hall lost a day care job two weeks ago and expects to readily find a Cobb County sales jobs.
“The economy is really good,” said Hall, who wants to work for six months before training to become an ultrasound technician. “But if you want a job you can’t be picky. Just call around.”
Employment numbers suggest more than just seasonal jobs are being created. Georgia has gained nearly 70,000 jobs since October 2011, an indication that most were permanent.
“It’s real job growth,” Humphreys said.
Job gains last month materialized across the board: education and health care, up 7,000; professional and business services, up 6,000; public schools, up 5,000; leisure and hospitality, up 3,000; technology, up 2,400. Even the hard-hit construction (up 1,700) and financial services (up 900) sectors hired workers.
Georgia has recouped about half the jobs lost in the recession, which cut the workforce by 8 percent. Tens of thousands of construction and bank jobs have disappeared. Government workers remain under the gun amid tight public budgets.
And more than 206,000 Georgians have been out of work at least 26 weeks — the so-called long-term unemployed who confront skeptical recruiters, and diminishing prospects, the longer they’re without a paycheck.
Thursday’s report, though, offered hope for even the long-unemployed. Only one of every two jobless Georgians has been without work for 26 weeks or longer, the lowest level in two years.
“If next month’s rate goes down again, and if it continues to go down, especially after the holidays, then we can make a better case for an improving economy,” Kusmik aid.
