Georgia’s Jobless Rate Unchanged in May

May’s unemployment numbers held steady at 9.8 percent according to figures released this week by the Georgia Department of Labor. This rate marks a slight improvement from the jobless rate of 10 percent from May 2010.

“Our state’s jobless rate has been declining slightly for the past six months,” said Labor Commissioner Mark Butler. “More businesses are slowly beginning to expand their workforce, illustrating a gradual increase of confidence in the economy.”

According to Butler, the number of payroll jobs increased by 3,400 with most of the jobs being in leisure and hospitality. However, Butler said, there are 28,300 fewer jobs than last year. Most of the job losses were reported in the fields of government, construction, and financial services.

The number of long-term unemployed still remains higher than last year at this time, but has shown improvement over the past three months. In May, there were 251,800 long-term unemployed compared to 225,700 last year. The long-term unemployed account for nearly 55 percent of Georgia’s unemployed workers.

First time unemployment claims increased by 506 last month, but fell 5.3 percent from the number of first time claims filed in May of 2010.

For the past 46 months, Georgia has exceeded the national unemployment rate, which is currently 9.1 percent.

More detailed data broken down by regions and counties will be released in the coming weeks.

So far in 2011, Oconee County has posted the rate in the state every month since with Echols County in January.