The Georgia Department of Labor announced on Thursday that the number of jobs rose by 20,200 to reach a total of 4,461,400 in September.
Georgia’s Labor Commissioner Mark Butler says, “Over the past five months, 340,900 jobs (or 65 percent) have been gained back from the massive job loss we saw in April.”
The state’s unemployment rate stood at 6.4 percent in September, an increase from 5.7 percent in August. That rate was 3.2 percent in September of 2019. Georgia’s current rate is lower than thenational unemployment rate, which is 7.9 percent. Unemployment is down across the state by 6.2 percent since the start of the pandemic in April, when the rate skyrocketed to 12.6 percent.
Initial unemployment claims declined in Georgia by 19 percent since August to reach 201,790 last month.