Coweta County topped the 8 percent unemployment mark in January 2008 and more than four years later it’s still there. Coweta’s jobless rate in February was 8.5 percent while the rate in Newnan was reported by the Ga. Dept. of Labor at 9.5 percent.
Coweta County in February experienced a small dip in jobless numbers to 8.5 percent. In a workforce of 63,492 that means that 5,393 have not found work. The rate in January was 8.6 percent while the rate a year ago totaled 9.1 percent.
Newnan’s unemployment rate dropped slightly to 9.5 percent in February from the 9.6 percent rate in January. The jobless rate was 9.4 percent a year ago.
The 10-county Three Rivers region saw a small decrease in February to 10.1 percent. That compares to the 10.2 percent rate in January and the 11 percent rate a year ago.
Unemployment in the 28-county Atlanta Metropolitan Statistical Area held nearly steady in February with a rate of 9 percent, down from 9.1 percent in January. That compares to the 9.9 percent rate a year ago.
Viewed statewide, Georgia’s jobless rate saw a slight decrease to 9.3 percent in February. The January rate was reported at 9.4 percent. With a workforce of 4.75 million that means 441,517 people were out of work.
Fayette, Coweta and Henry are the only counties in south metro Atlanta with an unemployment rate below 9.3 percent.
And nationwide, the rate in February slipped to 8.7 percent in February, down from 8.8 percent in January. That translates into 13.4 million people out of work.
But that is not the whole story since government figures do not account for issues such as underemployment where people wanting full-time employment can only find part-time work. That figure, according to Gallup, represented another 10 percent of the U.S. workforce.
Combining both the unemployment and under-employment rates shows that nearly 19 percent of the U.S. workforce is still being affected by the Great Recession that, according to both Washington and Wall Street, has long ended. The National Bureau of Economic Research in 2010 said the recession ended in June 2009
