Unemployment Rate Rises to 8.6 Percent in Bartow

Bartow County's unemployment rate jumped nearly a percentage point to a preliminary 8.6 percent in May, according to figures the Georgia Department of Labor released today.

That's up from April's revised 7.7 percent and just below the 9 percent jobless rate Bartow County logged in May of 2012.

While 571 more Bartow residents had entered the workforce since April, only 107 of them found jobs. In May, 463 more of the unemployed needed jobs than in April.

GDOL officials in northwest Georgia, which includes Bartow and 14 other counties, say the hike to a regional 8.6 percent jobless rate—up from 8 percent in April and down from 9 percent in May of last year—was primarily due to seasonal factors, according to the press release. 

New graduates looking for work served as an influx of jobseekers to the labor market.

Layoffs, another seasonal factor, which also affected Bartow and northwest Georgia, increased 15 percent in the 28-county Atlanta area in May. The jobless rate was 8.2 percent—up from 7.6 percent in April and down from 8.7 a year earlier. 

"Most of the increase came in accommodations and food services and educational services, as companies that supply workers to school systems laid off employees for the summer break," the release says. "Other layoffs were in health care and social assistance, wholesale and retail trade, and professional and technical and information services.... Most of the over-the-year decline came in construction, manufacturing and retail trade."

Georgia’s seasonally-adjusted May unemployment rate May was 8.3 percent, up from 8.2 percent in April and down from 9.1 percent in May a year ago. Local area unemployment data are not seasonally adjusted.

Metro Athens had the lowest area jobless rate in Georgia at 6.2 percent, while the Heart of Georgia-Altamaha region had the highest at 11.5 percent.

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