Gainesville was alone in July among the metropolitan areas in the state in a decrease in the number of initial claims for unemployment insurance in Georgia.
State Labor Commission Mark Butler says the number of applications filed in Gainesville during the month decreased by 19.4 percent compared to June and was down by 41.1 percent from the same period a year go. Month-to-month claims were up in the other 13 metropolitan areas, while, statewide, they were down 5.6 percent.
Butler said it's another positive sign for the economy in the Gainesville metro.
"We're continuing to see the strength of the local economy in Gainesville as we saw fewer initial claims for unemployment filed in July than we saw in June. As a matter of fact, we saw even fewer claims filed this July than we saw this time last year, so overall a very good July jobs report for Gainesville," Butler said.
Butler said he was especially encouraged by the total number of people in the workforce in the Gainesville metro; that number increased by 300 from June to July.
"That's something we desperately need to see because we do have a lot of jobs that are going unfilled," Butler said.
Click here for UI claims and other recent jobs-related data on all 159 Georgia counties.
