Bartow Jobless Rate Falls to 10.3%

unemployment rate dropped a full percentage point in November.

The rate fell to 10.3 percent in November from and 11.8 percent in November 2010, according to preliminary figures the Georgia Department of Labor released Thursday. The rate was .

The local numbers are still higher than the comparable rates for the metro area, the state and the nation. They also are not adjusted for seasonal variations.

Bartow’s big improvement combined two factors: the addition of nearly 400 jobs among county residents and the loss of almost 50 people from the workforce, which ended November at 45,457 people.

Bartow added almost 900 people to the rolls of the employed from November 2010 to November 2011.

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The good county job news matched the improvement for the official metro Atlanta area, where the November rate was 9.2 percent, down from 9.9 percent in October and 10.2 percent in September and 10.3 percent in November 2010. That area covers Barrow, Bartow, Butts, Carroll, Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, Coweta, Dawson, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Forsyth, Fulton, Gwinnett, Haralson, Heard, Henry, Jasper, Lamar, Meriwether, Newton, Paulding, Pickens, Pike, Rockdale, Spalding and Walton counties.

In the overlapping 15-county area covered by the Northwest Georgia Regional Commission—Paulding, Bartow, Catoosa, Chattooga, Dade, Fannin, Floyd, Gilmer, Gordon, Haralson, Murray, Pickens Polk, Walker and Whitfield counties—the jobless pattern was the same. The rate fell to 9.6 percent in November from 10.4 percent a month earlier and 11 percent a year earlier. The region added nearly 2,800 jobs in November.

The state rate was a seasonally adjusted 9.9 percent in November, down from 10.2 percent in October and 10.4 percent in November 2010. The seasonally adjusted national rate was 8.6 percent in November, compared with 9 percent in October and 9.8 percent in November 2010.

The Atlanta metro area added 13,300 jobs in November, the Labor Department said. Most of those jobs were in private service-related industries, including professional and business services, trade, transportation, warehousing, education, health care and financial services.