Sam Hall, Director of Communications for the Georgia Department of Labor, said there are a number of reasons for the slight uptick in the Hall County jobless rate.
"...there were some people who work in financial institutions and the service industries as well as some others who manufacture electrical machinery who had been temporarily laid off," Hall said.
The jobless rate is also up slightly in Banks, Forsyth, Jackson, and Lumpkin counties. Also, Stephens and White. It is down a bit in Barrow and Dawson counties, and unchanged in Habersham.
Overall, in the 13-county Georgia Mountains region, the jobless rate rose to 3.8 percent, up two-tenths of a percent from a month ago. A year ago it was 3.4 percent.
State Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond said there were two principal reasons why the area's jobless rate rose: New job creation failed to keep pace with the number of new people entering the workforce, and some layoffs occurred in manufacturing, construction, trade and service-related industries.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2003/1/184450