Stephens Co. Sees Unemployment Rate Drop in April

Stephens County sees a drop in the unemployment rate.

Georgia Department of Labor figures released recently show that in April, the preliminary unemployment rate for Stephens County was 5.4 percent.

That is down four-tenths of a percentage point from the revised March rate and down 1.1 percentage points from the revised rate for April 2015.

Looking at Stephens County’s labor force, it was 10,715 in April. That is down from March’s labor force of 10,772. However, it is about the same as it was in April 2015, when the labor force in Stephens County was 10,718.

This April, there were 10,139 employed in Stephens County, which is slightly down from 10,150 in March, but up from the April 2015 figure of 10,023.

Looking regionally, the Georgia Mountains region had an unemployment rate of 4.3 percent, down four-tenths of a percentage point from March.

State Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said a look at the Georgia Mountains region’s numbers for last month shows mostly good news.

“In fact, the only bad news that we saw in those numbers was the fact that we saw over 800 individuals leave the labor force, which is not what we really want to see right now, not in this economy when we have employers who are needing workers to fill the jobs that they have open,” said Butler. “Overall, we saw more people become employed during the month of April and we saw the number of individuals reporting as being unemployed decrease significantly during the month of April.”

Butler said that a new system with the Georgia Department of Labor also lets the agency track unofficial numbers of jobs for the Georgia Mountains region.

He said looking at those unofficial numbers show a good jobs picture in the Georgia Mountains region.

“In the month of April, we saw over 2,000 new job postings just in the Georgia Mountains region alone and that is a very good jobs growth number during that time period and these are jobs that are being posted by local employers for jobs that are currently available,” said Butler. “It gives us a pretty good idea what is going on in the Georgia Mountains region when it comes to job growth. That tells us we are seeing good news. We need those individuals that have left the workforce to come back.”

For more information on jobs posted with the Georgia Department of Labor, go to employgeorgia.com. Butler said that job seekers can search jobs and post resume information online to that site.

Meanwhile looking at other area counties’ unemployment rates for April, Franklin County saw its unemployment rate drop four-tenths of a percentage point to 4.9 percent; Habersham County’s unemployment rate also dropped four-tenths of a percentage point to 4.9 percent; and Banks County saw its unemployment rate drop three-tenths of a percentage point to 4.7 percent.