The lower unemployment rates seen in Newnan and Coweta County in November traveled north about a third of a point in December. Coweta’s jobless rate for December moved up to 9 percent while the rate in Newnan rose to 10.5 percent.
Figures released by the Ga. Dept. of Labor showed a December unemployment rate for Coweta County at 9 percent. That’s up from the 8.7 percent rate in November. While higher than anyone would like it easily outstrips the 9.6 percent rate a year ago.
Coweta currently has a workforce of 60,765, of which 5,441 are unemployed.
The December unemployment picture in Newnan moved up three-tenths of a point, with the 10.2 percent rate in November coming in at 10.5 percent in December. That said, the situation is far better than just a year ago when the jobless rate stood at 11.4 percent.
Unemployment in December also crept up across the 10-county Three Rivers Commission area. While still much better than the 11.1 percent jobless rate a year ago, the November rate of 10.2 percent increased to 10.4 in December. That means that nearly 203,000 Three Rivers residents are without jobs.
Fayette and Coweta are the only counties in south or southwest metro Atlanta with an unemployment rate below 9.4 percent.
And across Georgia nearly half a million people are without work. The 9.2 percent jobless rate in November increased to 9.4 percent in December. Georgia has a labor force of 4.76 million.
Nationwide, the unemployment rate for December stood at 8.5 percent, down from 8.7 percent in November.
But what about the statistics never listed by state and federal labor departments? That would be the number of people underemployed. Measured by Gallup and defined as the percentage of workers who are unemployed combined with the percentage working part-time but wanting full-time work. Those numbers translate into 18.3 percent of the U.S. workforce.
