Georgia unemployment ranks seventh-lowest in nation

ATLANTA — The Georgia Department of Labor announced this week that the unemployment rate dropped for all metropolitan service areas, regions and counties in Georgia for the month of August. This week, Georgia was recognized with the seventh-lowest unemployment rate in the nation.

The six states with a lower unemployment rate (Nebraska, Utah, Idaho, South Dakota, Vermont, North Dakota) have a combined labor force of 4.7 million, less than Georgia’s total of 4.9 million.

“As we continue to rebound from the economic devastation of COVID-19, we have seen our unemployment rate plummet the past several months on the statewide level and across Georgia in all of our cities and communities,” Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler said in a news release. “With one of the nation’s lowest unemployment rates, we will continue to support Georgians with unemployment and now re-employment services.”

More than 161,000 jobs are listed online at EmployGeorgia.com for Georgians to access. Jobs range from nurses paying $10-$55 per hour to welders earning up to $36 per hour to business analysts paying $14 to $20 per hour. Annual salaries listed on the site reflect jobs earning $50,000 to more than $155,000 for plumbers, cybersecurity managers, and software developers.

The GDOL offers online resources for finding a job, building a resume, and assisting with other re-employment needs, the department said. GDOL Employment Services staff have made direct contact with employers asking them to clearly indicate on their job order if a position can be worked remotely, even if partially remote, to help meet their work force needs. Adding this level of detail to their job order could significantly increase their job seeker candidate pool.

“These listings sometimes represent multiple positions for the same job posting, meaning hundreds of thousands of jobs for Georgians,” Butler said. “We have highly experienced staff to help get Georgians back into the work force, and business owners are looking for employees to fill critical positions as we continue to recover from the pandemic.”

The Georgia Department of Labor has paid almost $14 billion in state and federal benefits since the beginning of the pandemic in March of this year. Last week, the GDOL issued $366 million in benefits, which included regular unemployment and federally funded Lost Wages Assistance supplements, Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation and State Extended Benefits.

Eligible claimants received their final round of supplemental payments this week for the six weeks of the Lost Wages Assistance program.

From the week ending March 21 through the week ending Sept. 19, 3,738,365 regular UI initial claims have been processed, more than the last eight years combined. Of those, 2,493,560 were employer filed claims, and 1,244,805 were individual claims. For the week ending Sept. 19, initial claims totaled 49,421, up 7,341 from the prior week.

The number of initial unemployment claims filed throughout the United States for the week ending Sept. 19 was 870,000, an increase of 4,000 from the previous week’s revised level of 866,000.

At this time, GDOL career centers remain closed to the public. All online services are still available as the staff continues to answer calls, process claims, respond to customer inquiries, and provide assistance to applicants. The GDOL will re-open offices to the public as soon as social distancing can be effectively implemented to protect both staff and customers.

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