Paulding County Jobless Rate Sees Sharp Decline in April

Metro Atlanta’s unemployment rate took a three-tenths of a percentage point dip in April, the Georgia Department of Labor announced Thursday.

That also included a sharp decline in Paulding County.

The rate in the metro fell from 6.8 percent in March to 6.5 in April. The jobless rate was 7.7 percent a year ago.

The decline is attributed to the creation of 18,000 more jobs in April in the region.

Most of the job gains came in leisure and hospitality (6,300), professional and business services (5,300), and construction (2,700). The labor department said job gains from March to April in metro Atlanta has averaged 13,000 over the past five years.

Locally, the unemployment rate in Paulding County fell significantly from 6.3 in March to an estimated 5.9 in April.

The number of unemployed workers in the county fell from 4,560 to 4,294.

Metro Athens had the lowest area jobless rate in the state at 4.9 percent, while the Heart of Georgia-Altamaha region had the highest at 8.8 percent.

Georgia’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for April was 7.0 percent, unchanged from March.

Note: Local area unemployment data are not seasonally adjusted.