Politics & Government
Marietta Jobless Rate Holds at 9.5%
Cobb County's unemployment rate also was unchanged in February at 8.4 percent.
Marietta had 136 more residents working and seven fewer officially unemployed, but the city’s jobless rate in February was the same as January’s: 9.5 percent.
That’s the report from the Georgia Department of Labor, which released preliminary figures on local February employment today. The report revised January’s Marietta unemployment rate down a tick from the .
According to the report, 28,595 of the 31,590 Mariettans in the labor force had jobs in February. A year earlier, 27,849 of 30,925 people had jobs, an unemployment rate of 9.9 percent.
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Across Cobb County, residents gained almost 1,700 jobs in February.
The Cobb unemployment rate was unchanged from because the labor force grew by more than 1,900. But at 344,029, the number of people in Cobb with jobs rose by almost 9,000 from February 2011, when the county’s jobless rate was 9.2 percent.
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The February rate was higher than the national rate of 8.3 percent, unchanged from January, but lower than the state rate of 9.1 percent, down from 9.2 percent in January.
For the 28-county Atlanta metro area and for the 10-county area covered by the Atlanta Regional Commission, both of which include Cobb, the unemployment rate dropped to 9 percent from 9.1 percent in January and 9.9 percent in February 2011.
Fewer layoffs in manufacturing, construction, trade, and administrative and support services fueled the drop in the Atlanta metro unemployment rate, the state Labor Department said.
While the national and statewide figures are seasonally adjusted, the local numbers are not, so the comparisons with a year ago are a better gauge of the employment picture than the month-to-month variations.
The state gained 15,600 jobs in February, 70 percent of them in the private sector, for a total of 3,880,400, the Labor Department said.
In the past year, Georgia added 41,800 jobs, most of them in professional and business services, the state department said. Other top areas for job growth were retail trade, education and health care, and manufacturing.
The state Labor Department held a live, online chat Wednesday on , following up on in February and in January.
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February's Unemployment Report
Jurisdiction Preliminary Feb. 2012 Revised Jan. 2012 Revised Feb. 2011 United States 8.3% 8.3% 9.0% Georgia 9.1% 9.2% 9.9% Atlanta metro 9.0% 9.1% 9.9% Atlanta Regional Commission 9.0% 9.1% 9.9% Northwest Georgia 9.6% 9.8% 10.5% Bartow County 9.7% 9.8% 10.9% Cherokee County 7.6% 7.6% 8.6% Cobb County 8.4% 8.4% 9.2% Douglas County 9.4% 9.5% 10.8% Paulding County 8.5% 8.6% 9.8% Douglasville 10.5% 10.9% 11.3% Kennesaw 10.2% 10.3% 11.4% Marietta 9.5% 9.5% 9.9% Note: U.S. and Georgia rates are seasonally adjusted; all regional, county and city rates are not.Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.
