Fayette County’s unemployment rate looked better for July after a jump in the wrong direction in June. The July jobless rate fell by half a point to 7.7 percent.
July unemployment figures released by the Georgia Department of Labor showed Fayette with a 7.7 percent jobless rate. That compares to the 8.2 percent rate in June and a rate of 8.4 percent a year ago. The July figure translates into 4,181 people in Fayette without work in a workforce of 54,256.
Unemployment figures in Peachtree City also improved in July, with the 7.3 percent jobless rate in June falling to 6.6 percent last month. The July 2012 rate was 7.6 percent.
The job market in July saw some improvement across the 10-county Atlanta Regional Commission area. The 8.8 percent rate in June decreased to 8.5 percent in July. That figure represents 186,273 people unemployed in a workforce of 2.1 million. The ARC’s jobless rate a year ago was 9.3 percent.
Statewide, the seasonally-adjusted jobless rate for July was 8.8 percent compared to an 8.5 percent rate in June and 9.1 percent rate a year ago.
When viewed nationwide, Georgia’s seasonally-adjusted rate is well above the 7.4 percent national unemployment rate.
Jobless figures supplied by governments only tell part of the story. A part of that story deals with the number of people underemployed, those working part-time but seeking full-time employment. Nationwide, the underemployment numbers for July show 9.4 percent of workers in that category, according to Gallup.
Still another category deals with marginally-attached workers. Among the nation’s 2.4 million marginally-attached workers in July, 1.4 million had not searched for work in the past four weeks due to reasons such as school attendance and family responsibilities and another 988,000 had stopped looking for work because they believe there are no jobs available for them, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
