Georgia’s Seasonally-Adjusted Unemployment Rate Drops

Georgia’s seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate dropped to 5.1 percent in March, down from 5.3 percent in February. 

State Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said that’s the lowest the rate has been since December 2007, the beginning of the Great Recession. 

Butler said job growth outpaced the average February-to-March increase of 9,300 for the previous three years. 

Job gains were made in professional and business services, leisure and hospitality, trade, transportation and warehousing, education and health services, government, construction, financial activities, information services and manufacturing.

The number of initial claims for unemployment insurance, a measure of new layoffs, rose by 712, or 2.9 percent, in March. 

Most of the increase was due to temporary claims filed in manufacturing.

Over the year, claims were down by 10.6 percent, from March 2016.