Georgia job growth was slightly weaker than average while unemployment rose in August, a sign the labor market might welcome the cut in interest rates announced this week.
The state’s economy expanded by just 3,000 jobs during the month, according to the Georgia Department of Labor.
The jobless rate rose to 3.6% from 3.4% in July.
Prospects are for continued, if unspectacular growth, said Cal Evans, senior director for market intelligence and analytics at Columbus-based Synovus Financial Corp.
For a range of reasons — climate, jobs, cost of living, taxes — the state attracts new residents from both within and outside the United States, people who add to the capacity of the workforce, as well as to spending on consumer goods and housing, he said. “I think Georgia is on a path to perform above the national average.”
The state has built-in economic benefits from the massive Port of Savannah, Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and the north-south highways carrying huge numbers of people and materials, he said. “Logistics is a good sector for Georgia,” Evans said.
The decision this week by the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates is especially welcome news, he said.
After rapid, post-pandemic expansion in 2021 and 2022, the pace of growth had slowed dramatically as the Fed raised interest rates and made borrowing more costly for companies and consumers alike.
The jobless rate, while still low historically, is up from 3.1% in April.
Layoffs have been relatively few, but unemployment has risen slowly during the past year. About 192,000 people are unemployed, a number that includes new entrants to the job market, like those who have recently left school.
That compares to nearly a half-million jobless during the Great Recession of 2007-09, but current unemployment is still at its highest level since July 2021, officials said.
Sluggish hiring has just not been absorbing enough of the new jobseekers, said Bruce Thompson, the state’s labor commissioner. “Unemployment has risen for the fourth month in a row, with more Georgians entering the workforce than ever before.”
One reason is that hiring has been uneven.
Much of the growth has been in a few sectors, especially health care and social assistance, which added 2,900 jobs last month. The sector that includes the state’s film industry has also been rebounding from months of job loss.
But manufacturing shed 2,500 jobs and there were also losses in several other sectors.
August is typically a month in which the economy loses jobs only during recessions, like 2001 or 2009, or in special circumstances — as in 1996 when the end of the Atlanta Olympics triggered many layoffs.
In normal years, August growth is generally modest, so what is more troublesome is the longer-term trend, Thompson said. Job growth has slowed over the past four months.
(The state has added 18,200 jobs since April, compared to February and March, when job growth totaled 31,200.)
Typically, it is the last few months of a year — including the holidays — that hold the key to a year’s job growth.
In the years between the Great Recession and the coronavirus pandemic, the Georgia economy averaged expansion of 32,000 jobs from September to December — most of them in the final three months.
Georgia job change, August
Best, pre-pandemic: 22,400 (1995)
Worst, pre-pandemic: -56,700 (1996)
Average, pre-pandemic: 3,210
Recent: 3,000 (2024)
Georgia jobs, cumulative total added January through August
2021: 145,100
2022: 130,100
2023: 44,700
2024: 49,400
Best: 96,600 (1994)
Worst: -166,000 (2009)
Average, pre-pandemic: 35,910
Georgia unemployment rate, August
Lowest, pre-pandemic: 3.5% (2000)
Highest, pre-pandemic: 10.8% (2009)
Average, pre-pandemic: 6.0%
Recent: 3.6% (2024)
Sources: Georgia Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics
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