June 20, 2019–11:30 a.m.

GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

First-time claims for unemployment insurance dropped in Floyd County last month.

According to the Georgia Department of Labor, there were 301 initial claims in May, down from 433 in April.

However, claims were up when compared to the 251 filed in May of last year.

In Bartow County, there were 181 claims last month, compared to 180 in April and 312 in May of 2018.

Chattooga County saw 32 UI claims in May, down from 33 in April but up from 29 this time last year.

Gordon County reported 175 claims, up from 101 the month before and up from 150 in May of 2018.

Polk County had 128, which is down from 131 in April but up from 85 in May of last year.

The labor department also reported that the Rome area lost 200 jobs from April to May.

Even so, Rome has added a total of 700 new jobs since May of 2018.

Statewide, Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said that Georgia added jobs in May while its unemployment rate held steady.

Butler also noted that preliminary numbers showed year-over-year gains in:

• jobs
• employment, and
• workforce.

At the same time, claims for unemployment insurance were down when compared to last May and from the total in April.

“The long-term trends continue to go in the right directions,” Butler said.  “We continue to grow jobs and keep our unemployment rate low. Georgia remains a great place to locate and grow a business.”

Nationally, the unemployment rate also held constant, staying at 3.6 percent in May. Georgia’s rate maintained at 3.8 percent.  A year ago, Georgia’s unemployment rate sat at 4 percent.

Meanwhile, Georgia’s added 2,600 jobs in May, pushing the total to 4.59 million jobs. That number is up more than 69,000 from the same time last year.

“We are continuing to see Georgia grow jobs and overall we’re still seeing fewer layoffs year over year,” Butler said. “It just goes to show the strength of Georgia’s economy.”

Georgia had four job sectors that added more than 10,000 jobs over the past year:

• Education/health services, 17,700
• Professional/business services, 16,400
• Leisure/hospitality, 13,400
• Construction, 11,100.

In terms of monthly numbers, government, construction, and education/health services all added 1,000 or more jobs.

In May, labor force and employed residents both declined but much less than .1 percent.

Georgia’s labor force slipped by less than 5,000 versus a total workforce of more than 5.1 million. And, even with the monthly loss, the labor force total was still higher than the same month a year ago.

The change in employed residents was even smaller.

That number slipped by less than 3,300 against a total number of more than 4.91 million employed residents in the state. Again, even with the monthly loss, the annual number was still up by nearly 12,000.

At the same time, new claims for unemployment were down by about 2 percent compared with last month.  When compared to May of 2018, claims were down by about 8 percent.

Job postings on EmployGeorgia.com climbed again in May settling at about 93,000.