State jobless rate below 5% despite cuts

Georgia’s loss of 3,800 jobs in May tempered by drop in layoffs, overall positive trajectory for labor.

Georgia lost 3,800 jobs in May, the second consecutive month of job losses, the state Labor Department reported Thursday.

However, the report was something of a mixed message as the unemployment rate fell to 4.9 percent, the first time the figure fell below 5 percent since October 2007. Moreover, layoffs appear to be down and the still has added more than 100,000 jobs in the past year.

So despite a two-month hiccup in job growth, the trajectory is positive, said Mark Butler, the state labor commissioner.

“It’s a testament to the attractiveness of Georgia’s job market when we continue to see more and more individuals enter and re-enter the job market and find employment.”

The number of people in the labor force has grown by more than 141,000 in the past year. The number of Georgians who say they have jobs is up by 156,000 in that time, Butler said.

But those numbers, which count people, come from a different survey than the one that counts jobs. That means there can be a decline in jobs at the same time the unemployment rate improves.

Sometimes the two surveys point in opposite directions because the economy is going through a transition. It takes more than a month or two to figure out whether hiring has just paused temporarily or if companies are starting to shed jobs?

Several sectors were weak in May:

■ Professional and business services, which is the relatively high-paid corporate sector, lost 4,400 positions during the month.

■ Leisure and hospitality, generally a low-paying sector, dipped 2,200.

■ Manufacturing was down 2,000 jobs.

■Information services, which includes many techies, slid by 1,000 jobs.

In contrast, trade, transportation and warehousing added 3,400. That category includes both retail – which has been struggling lately – and logistics, which benefits from trade and shipping.

Also, government grew by 2,400 and construction, which has been robust through several years, was up 1,400.

Where demand is strong, companies complain of shortages. For instance, construction companies have complained of trouble finding the people they need, according to a survey by accounting firm Bennett Thrasher and the construction management department at Kennesaw State University.

“They just don’t seem to be replacing people as fast as those people are retiring,” said Tom Jollay, a co-leader in the construction practice of Bennett Thrasher.

The survey showed 87 percent of construction firms call the search for skilled workers their top problem.

Georgia’s unemployment rate is still above the national rate — as it has been since 2007. The U.S. rate jobless rate is 4.3 percent. But at least during the past several years, the pace of job growth in Georgia has been more rapid than the national expansion.

The state reports are a window into the recent past. Reading the current situation depends on anecdotes that are very small samples in a labor force of more than 5 million. For instance, a healthy economy typically draws people to town to take jobs but also to add to the region’s overall demand for goods and services.

But Brian Reed has seen a troubling trend in that measure. Reed is chief operating officer of Austell-based Zippy Shell, which offers storage, generally for people moving. Most customers are young professionals and many are women, he said. Just about all have jobs, either in Atlanta or somewhere else.

“I would say it’s been about 60 percent exits and 40 percent coming in,” Reed said. “We have seen a net loss for Atlanta.”