The local economies in Coweta and Fayette counties continue to improve, but the unemployment numbers fail to reflect that story. The jobless rate in Fayette in July rose nearly a half-point to 7.5 percent while the numbers in Coweta showed nearly a full point increase to 8 percent.
Unemployment figures for July, released by the Ga. Dept. of Labor, showed Coweta with a June jobless rate of 7.2 percent. Just one month later that rate had climbed to 8 percent. The unemployment rate a year ago was 8.1 percent. Coweta County has a workforce of 64,761, with 5,155 currently unemployed.
The situation in Fayette was a bit better, though unemployment numbers continue to head in the wrong direction. Fayette had a June jobless rate of 7.1 percent. Yet July’s figures show the rate climbing to 7.5 percent, the same rate evidenced a year ago. Fayette has a workforce of 53,299, with 4,009 of those residents out of work.
The two larges cities in both counties fared no better during July. Peachtree City’s jobless rate jumped a half-point in July while Newnan’s unemployment rate jumped a full point during the same period. The jobless rate in Peachtree City increased from 6.9 percent in June to 7.4 percent in July. Peachtree City’s unemployment rate in July 2013 was 6.4 percent. Things were even worse in Newnan, where the June rate of 8.2 percent turned into a rate of 9.2 percent in July.
That compares to a 9.3 percent rate a year ago. Across the 10-county Atlanta Regional Commission area that includes Fayette, the jobless rate in June was 7.6 percent but in July the rate had increased to 7.9 percent. That compares to the 8.2 percent rate a year ago. The 10-county Three Rivers Commission area which includes Coweta saw June’s jobless rate of 8.5 percent climb to 9.4 percent in July. The Three Rivers unemployment rate in July 2013 was 10.7 percent.
Across the state, Georgia saw the 7.8 percent rate in June jump to 8.3 percent in July. It was a year ago that the state’s jobless rate stood at 8.7 percent. There is always more to the unemployment story than can be found in government-supplied unemployment figures.
For example, Gallup.com notes that for August the national unemployment rate was 6.3 percent but the underemployment rate, such as those people working part-time because they cannot find full-time work, stood at 15.1 percent.
