Bartow Jobless Rate Soars to 11.3%

Bartow County added jobs in October but saw the unemployment rate jump to 11.3 percent, according to preliminary figures from the Georgia Department of Labor.

The rate rose from but improved from 11.6 percent in October 2010. The local numbers are not adjusted for seasonal factors.

The mixed results for Bartow paralleled the news for all of Northwest Georgia, where the October rate was 10.4 percent, down from 10.6 percent in September and in October 2010, but the number of people working declined by more than 200 in October, according to the .

Bartow’s rate remains higher than both the seasonally adjusted state rate—10.2 percent in October, down from 10.3 percent in September and in October 2010—and the national rate—an even 9 percent in October, compared with 9.1 percent in September and 9.7 in October 2010.

The featured speaker at Bank of North Georgia’s Economic Forecast 2012 breakfast on Tuesday at the suggested that Bartow County’s experience reflects the sluggish economy now and for years to come, the Marietta Daily Journal reported.

Albert Niemi Jr., the business dean at Southern Methodist University, predicted that the national unemployment rate will still be 9 percent at the end of 2012 because the economy isn’t producing jobs fast enough to overcome the growth in the labor force or to accommodate an estimated 12 million people who are underemployed or have given up even trying to find work, the said.

Still, Bartow did see job growth.

The county added 651 jobs in the past year, including 212 in October alone, according to the state Labor Department, but the civilian labor force of Bartow residents 16 and older grew by 586 people during the year and 477 in October to 45,559.

The Northwest Georgia statistical area of Bartow, Catoosa, Chattooga, Dade, Fannin, Floyd, Gilmer, Gordon, Haralson, Murray, Paulding, Pickens, Polk, Walker and Whitfield counties lost 209 jobs in October, the Labor Department estimated, but the unemployment rate declined because the labor force of more than 405,000 people shrank by 756.

Statewide in October, Georgia added 26,500 jobs, up 0.7 percentage point to 3.82 million from 3.79 million in September. Early holiday-related hiring in retail, transportation and warehousing accounted for 12,200 of those new jobs.

October was the 51st consecutive month Georgia exceeded the national unemployment rate.