Georgia Unemployment Stats and News

Georgia Unemployment Stats

Current and Historical Georgia Stats Analysis

In August of 2016, the Georgia unemployment rate dropped to 4.9 percent. This marked the first time since 2007 that the Georgia unemployment rate was as low as the national rate. As recently as September 2014, Georgia had the highest unemployment rate in the nation at 7.9 percent.

Several large Fortune 500 companies, including Home Depot, Coca-Cola, UPS, Delta, and Aflac have hired a significant number of people in the last two years and that has helped improve Georgia’s unemployment rate. These companies have also greatly impacted the job growth rate in the state as well. As of September 2016, the job growth rate was over 2 percent in Georgia. A revival of population growth along with housing recovery are expected to continue the trend of job growth through 2016 and 2017.

Why Unemployment Stats Are Valuable  - (standardized for all states, don’t write anything here)

Georgia Unemployment Stats Resources  

State and local unemployment rate and labor force estimate data resources are available online via the following sites:

• https://dol.georgia.gov/area-unemployment-rate-and-labor-force-estimates
• https://dol.georgia.gov/documents/unemployment-rate-statewide-seasonally-adjusted
• https://dol.georgia.gov/documents/civilian-labor-force-estimates
• http://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.ga.htm

Georgia Unemployment News

Georgia Unemployment in the News  

The recent decrease in the Georgia unemployment rate is a tremendous improvement given that the state had the highest unemployment rate in the nation in September 2014. Georgia had a slower unemployment recovery than most of the other states. Many blamed the state’s laissez-faire attitude towards job creation as the cause. Many believe this is a result of Georgia’s efforts to market itself as a state friendly to corporations. In many ways, Georgia is a low wage, tax, service state and self promotes itself in this manner.

Governor Deal has repeated his mantra that government should get out of the way of the private sector and let the private sector stimulate the economy on its own. Georgia was one of the first states to reduce the number of weeks residents could collect unemployment from 26 to 18 weeks.

In August 2016, Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler told the Macon Chamber of Commerce that the number of actual available jobs are likely much higher than what is reported through the U.S. Department of Labor Survey. Only time will tell if the higher number of available jobs will continue to improve Georgia’s unemployment rate.

Sources:

http://dol.georgia.gov/regular-unemployment-insurance-ui

https://dol.georgia.gov/individuals-faqs-unemployment-insurance

http://dol.georgia.gov/file-unemployment-insurance-claim

https://georgia.gov/popular-topic/applying-unemployment-insurance

https://www.dol.state.ga.us/WS4-MW5/cics.jsp?TRANSID=UCI1&FRMNAME=UCI1S

https://dol.georgia.gov/gdol-service-directory

https://www.dol.state.ga.us/WS4-MW5/cics.jsp?TRANSID=BP14&FRMNAME=BP14A

https://dol.georgia.gov/get-unemployment-assistance

https://dol.georgia.gov/learn-about-work-search-requirements

https://dol.georgia.gov/

https://dol.georgia.gov/gdol-service-directory

http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/local/georgia-unemployment-rate-drops-to-percent-in-august/article_bc5ec29b-ee2d-566a-b651-b452aaf87f9c.html

https://dol.georgia.gov/area-unemployment-rate-and-labor-force-estimates

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/news/business/article101977877.html

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/news/business/article96377217.html

http://www.macon.com/news/local/article99078257.html

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/01/whats-wrong-with-georgia/384101/