The Georgia Department of Labor announced that the unemployment rate in the Northwest Georgia region in August was 8.1 percent, down four-tenths of a percentage point from 8.5 percent in July. Also, the rate in August of last year was 8.1 percent.
The August rate increase is primarily because the number of initial claims for unemployment insurance, a measure of new layoffs, decreased by 28.2 percent from July.
There were 3,943 new claims for unemployment insurance filed in August, a decrease of 1,546 from 5,489 in July.
Most of the decrease in claims came in manufacturing and administrative services. Over the year, claims were up 27.8 percent from the 3,085 claims filed in August 2013.
Metro Athens had the lowest area jobless rate at 6.4 percent, while Metro Dalton had the highest at 10.7 percent.
Meanwhile, Georgia’s seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate for August was 8.1 percent, up from a revised 7.7 percent in July. It was 8.2 percent in August 2013.
Local area unemployment data are not seasonally adjusted. Georgia labor market data are available at www.gdol.ga.gov