The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Metro jobless rate falls to 4.5 percent; April hiring down
City’s unemployment numbers are back to pre-Recession levels .
The metro Atlanta unemployment rate fell in April to 4.5 percent from 4.6 percent in March, the state Labor Department reported Thursday.
However, hiring was weaker than it usually is during the month, with 9,200 new jobs added in the region. That’s less than half the average for April during the previous five years.
During the past year, the metro Atlanta economy has added 87,200 jobs, slightly slower than the growth of the previous year.
Overall, though, the job market continues to improve. After seven years of growth, the metro jobless rate has fallen back to levels before December 2007, when the Great Recession began.
Since the worst of the downturn, the metro Atlanta economy has added 503,000 jobs. The labor force, or total number of people working or seeking jobs, has grown too, but by less than that — which is pretty much the formula for cutting the unemployment rate.
Last week, the government reported that the state’s jobless rate had declined to 5.0 percent.
A year ago, the jobless rate for metro Atlanta was 4.8 percent. Five years ago, it was 8.5 percent. Not long before that, it was in double digits.
More than 135,000 people in metro Atlanta are counted as unemployed — that is, out of work and looking for a job. That is more than at the start of the recession, but down from 295,000 seven years ago.
On the other hand, about 30 percent of the jobless have been looking for more than six months.
According to the Labor Department, two sectors grew solidly in April. Leisure and hospitality, sometimes an indicator of consumer spending, had a weak start to the year. But in April, the sector added 4,400 new jobs. Second-best was the corporate sector, known as professional and business services, which was up 2,500 jobs.
Slower growth occurred in education and health, up just 400 jobs; financial services, which added 200 positions; logistics and retail with 100; and manufacturing with 100 jobs. Construction lost 1,000 jobs.