Douglasville Jobless Rate Falls to 11.5%

The unemployment rate fell slightly in Douglasville and stayed the same for Douglas County in December.

The preliminary figures from the state Department of Labor today show that the employment picture in the Douglasville area is following a trend of gradual growth.

Eleven more city residents were working at the end of December than a month earlier, boosting total employment to 13,211 people and cutting the jobless rate to 11.5 percent from .

But the more important comparison is to December 2010, when the city’s rate was nearly a point higher at 12.4 percent.

In Douglas County overall, about 1,260 more residents were employed at the end of 2011 than at the end of 2010. The 58,165 employed workers in December 2011 represented an increase of 52 from November.

The unemployment rate in Douglas was 10.2 percent in December, the same as in November but down sharply from 11.4 percent a year earlier.

The local figures are not seasonally adjusted, so the month-to-month changes don’t always reflect the health of the local economy. It’s typical for construction employment to fall as winter arrives, and workers hired for holiday retail jobs often are let go after Christmas.

For metro Atlanta, covering 28 counties including Douglas, the unemployment rate increased to 9.4 percent in December from 9.2 percent in November because of layoffs in construction, manufacturing, retail trade, administrative and support services, and accommodations and food services, the Labor Department said.

In the smaller, 10-county area covered by the Atlanta Regional Commission—Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Fulton, Gwinnett, Henry and Rockdale counties—the pattern was the same: 9.3 percent unemployment in December, up from 9.1 percent in November and down from 10.1 percent in December 2010.

The seasonally adjusted statewide rate in December was 9.7 percent, down from 9.8 percent in November and 10.4 percent in December 2010. Georgia’s jobless rate remains above the seasonally adjusted national unemployment rate, which was 8.5 percent in December, down from 8.7 percent in November and 9.4 percent in December 2010.

“The rate declined because 11,500 Georgians went back to work in December,” state Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said in a news release. “Plus, we saw some increases in employment in areas that have been especially hard hit.”

The number of long-term unemployed people statewide decreased 3,800 in December to 245,100, the Labor Department said.

That improvement reflected a trend the department reported Wednesday: Georgians typically spend a month less on state unemployment benefits than the average American.

As of December, the average Georgian on state unemployment insurance stopped benefits after 13.3 weeks. Nationally, the average was 17.4 weeks. Only North Dakotans get off state benefits sooner than Georgians.

Georgia’s unemployed can stay on state benefits for 26 weeks before federal benefits begin.

“When people think of a Labor Department, traditionally they think of the unemployment office,” Butler said. “In Georgia, we are trying to stop that. This is an employment office. We strive for that designation.”

The state Labor Department held a that appeared on Patches across Georgia on Wednesday, and Butler is participating in a panel discussion today at on training to prepare the workforce of the future.

You can follow that discussion live on Douglasville Patch at 11:30 a.m.