It’s pretty good news for a recession that just keeps hanging on. September’s unemployment figures for Coweta County showed a decrease of nearly a percentage point to 7.8 percent while the rate in Fayette County fell half a percentage point to 7.3 percent.
Coweta’s jobless rate in August came in at 8.7 percent but that rate fell nearly a full percentage point to 7.8 percent in September. In Fayette, the unemployment rate fell half a percentage point during the same period, from 7.8 percent in August to 7.3 percent in September.
September figures for Fayette represented 3,934 people out of work in a workforce of 53,624. And in Coweta, the September jobless rate represented 4,978 people out of work in a workforce of 63,934.
As for the largest cities in the two counties, the rate in Newnan saw a large one-month drop while the jobless rate in Peachtree City climbed a tenth of a percent. Newnan’s unemployment rate in September dropped almost a full point to 8.7 percent. That compares to the 9.6 percent rate in August. In Peachtree City, the August rate of 6.9 percent increased slightly to 7 percent in September.
The unemployment picture across the 10-county Atlanta Regional Commission area that includes Fayette County saw jobless figures of 8.9 percent in August fall to 8.4 percent in September. Similarly in the Three Rivers Commission area that includes Coweta County, the 9.8 percent rate in August fell to 9.2 percent in September.
And across the 28-county Atlanta Metropolitan Statistical Area, the jobless rate dropped nearly half a percentage point, from 8.8 percent in August to 8.4 percent in September.
Georgia’s jobless rate also fell, with the rate for August coming in at 9.1 percent compared to the 8.6 percent rate in September.
Unfortunately, there is more to the unemployment picture than what is accounted for by government tracking statistics. That includes the number of people underemployed, the number of people seeking full-time work but only able to secure part-time employment. According to Gallup, the number of people underemployed in September totaled 8.6 percent of the workforce. That number is in addition to the 7.8 percent national unemployment rate for September.
