Unemployment nudges up slightly in Floyd County, Rome
♦ More people looking for work is cited as the primary reason for the increase.
Unemployment in Rome nudged upward by the slimmest of margins, one-tenth of a percent from June, to 4.7 percent in July. A year ago in July, the jobless rate was listed at 6.2 percent. The Georgia Department of Labor attributed the increase to growth in the workforce.
Data released Thursday shows that 45,356 residents were in the local workforce during July, up by more than 600 residents from July a year ago.
Rome Floyd Chamber Economic Development Director Heather Seckman said it’s great news that there are more people in the workforce and out actively seeking a job.
The actual number of Rome and Floyd County residents who were working in July was 43,245, up by more than 1,200 over the past 12 months. Those jobs could be anywhere across the region, not just in Floyd County.
Seckman said that to her knowledge, there were no significant layoffs during the month of July. Chamber President Al Hodge said a number of employers are looking for dozens of employees locally.
“The unemployed certainly have a wide range of choices for jobs in the community,” Hodge said.
The state said the number of jobs attributed to actual payrolls of companies based in
Floyd County was listed at 41,400 in July. Hodge said he was particularly pleased to see that number of locally based jobs up by 700 as compared to a year ago.
The 15-county Northwest Georgia region, which includes Dade, Catoosa, Whitfield, Walker, Murray, Fannin, Gilmer, Gordon, Chattooga, Floyd, Bartow, Pickens, Polk, Paulding and Haralson counties, checked in with a 4 percent jobless rate for July, down from 4.1 percent in June and well below the 5.1 percent rate in July of 2017.
The civilian labor force across the region has grown by almost 10,000 residents over a year’s time. The number of Northwest Georgia residents who were working somewhere in July was up by approximately 13,400 over the same month a year ago.
Six of the 15 counties actually reported jobless rates of less than 4 percent. Catoosa, Dade and Paulding all checked in at 3.5 percent. Pickens County was at 3.6, Bartow at 3.8 and Haralson at 3.9 percent.
Murray County had the highest unemployment rate across the northwest region at 5.7 percent.