DOL: Unemployment in Georgia decreased in April
ATLANTA - More out-of-work Georgians were getting jobs in April, the Department of Labor announced.
Georgia’s unemployment rate dropped to 4.3% in April, down .2% from March 2021.
Though unemployment in the state is not back to the record-low before the pandemic, things are improving from an astronomical 12.5% reported in April 2020.
One week ago, the Department of Labor reported 25,441 initial unemployment insurance claims, down 7,392 over the week. From March 22 to 28, 2020, the Georgia Department of Labor processed 133,820 unemployment claims. Since March 21, 2020, 4,803,828 initial claims have been processed, more than the nine years prior to the pandemic combined (4 million).
The Department of Labor said industries with the most weekly regular UI initial claims are in accommodation and food services (5,741), administrative and support services (1,772), manufacturing (1,697), wholesale trade (1,322) and retail trade, (1,176).
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Jobs in the state are decreasing, but still high compared to prior to the pandemic. The Department of Labor reported the job total listed online at EmployGeorgia showed 239,000 listings in April. It's down from the more than 240,000 reported earlier this month — three times the number of jobs available in February 2020, Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said.
The decrease in Georgia's unemployment rate came prior to the state's decision to opt out of additional federal unemployment benefits. Now that the economy is recovering, Gov. Brian Kemp said Georgia has a record number of jobs available and he thinks the federal benefit is kept people from returning to the workforce.
Georgia's unemployment rate has decreased each month since April 2020.
The U.S. unemployment rate is at 6.1%, according to the Georgia Department of Labor.
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