Metro Atlanta’s Unemployment Rate Falls Again

However, unemployment rates need to be taken with a grain of salt.

Dr. Rajeev Dhawan is the director of the Economic Forecasting Center at the Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University.  

He says there are many other factors that need to be looked at to determine the economic health of an area.

“At the national level, I like to look at what are the housing stocks are doing….what is the car sales doing.  And at the local level, unfortunately, you only have one decent indicator, which is the amount of job growth.”

According to the DOL, nearly 13,000 jobs were created in metro Atlanta over the last month.

Professional and business services and trade and transportation were among the fields seeing a boost in employment opportunities.

Dhawan says that’s average, and that it might take a while for the capital of the Peach State to show stronger growth.

“The headwinds that are being created by the politics in Washington and by the global malaise, and some other issues….they will hold us back.  But once these things are taken care of, by the end of this year, hopefully, then next year, we can accelerate,” says Dhawan.

The state’s unemployment rate is 8.2 percent.  That’s more than half-a-point higher than the national average.