Unemployment Rates: Up in Douglasville, Down in Douglas County

Sign up for the Douglasville Patch newsletter!

-------

Unemployment rose in the city of Douglasville, but fell slightly in the county, according to preliminary March data released by the state labor department.

Douglasville’s rate rose from 7.3 in February to 7.5 percent in March, while Douglas County’s rate fell from 6.7 to 6.6 during the same time period.

The Georgia Department of Labor also said in a Thursday news release that the rate in metro Atlanta also declined last month — 5.9 percent, down from 6.1 in February and 7.0 a year ago.

Douglasville’s rate was the ninth-highest among the 37 Georgia cities with populations of 25,000 or more, the data showed. East Point, south of Atlanta, had the state’s highest city rate at 9.5 percent.

The labor department said the metro rate declined due to more jobs being created — up 1,900 jobs in March from February (0.1 percent).

However, initial claims for unemployment insurance rose 1.7 percent from February to March.

Metro Gainesville had the lowest area jobless rate at 4.9 percent, while the Heart of Georgia-Altamaha region had the highest at 7.8 percent.

Meanwhile, Georgia’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for March was 6.3 percent, unchanged from February. It was 7.3 percent in March 2014

Click here for more unemployment data from the Georgia Dept. of Labor