The Georgia Department of Labor (GDOL) announced that Georgia’s unemployment rate dropped another 0.2 percentage points to reach 4.3 percent in April. 

In April, the labor force was up 11,336 to reach a total of 5,172,407, and was up by 186,000 since the beginning of the pandemic. Georgia’s employed residents in April saw an increase of 22,222, reaching a total of 4,951,267, and was up 586,000 since April 2020.

Jobs in April decreased by 9,300, reaching a total of 4,473,600. That number is up 416,600 compared to this same time last year. The job total listed online at EmployGeorgia is showing 239,000 job listings— over triple the amount of the 70,000 listings in April of 2020.

Of the over 239,000 jobs currently listed on EmployGeorgia, 72 percent show salaries over $30,000. In many cases, employers are willing to train quality candidates and assist with attainment of additional credentials.  The sectors with the most over-the-month job gains included Health Care and Social Assistance, 3,500, Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services, 1,500, and Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction, 1,400.

The GDOL has paid almost $21.5 billion in state and federal benefits in the past sixty weeks.  Last week, the GDOL issued $191.5 million in benefits, which included regular unemployment and federally funded Lost Wages Assistance (LWA) supplements, Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC), and State Extended Benefits.

Since week ending March 21, 2020, 4,803,828 regular UI initial claims have been processed, more than the nine years prior to the pandemic combined (4 million). Last week, regular UI initial claims totaled 25,441, down 7,392 over the week. Initial claims are defined as any notice of unemployment filed to request a determination of entitlement to or eligibility of unemployment insurance compensation OR to begin a second or subsequent period of eligibility within a benefit year. Initial claims numbers are not a direct correlation to layoffs. Additionally, the agency currently has 191,941 active PUA claims. 

The sectors with the most weekly regular UI initial claims processed included Accommodation and Food Services, 5,741, Administrative and Support Services, 1,772, Manufacturing, 1,697, Wholesale Trade, 1,322, and Retail Trade, 1,176.

In the week ending May 15, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 444,000, a decrease of 34,000 from the previous week's revised level of 478,000.

Resources for reemployment assistance along with Information on filing an unemployment claim and details on how employers can file partial claims can be found on the agency's webpage at dol.georgia.gov.

For more information on jobs and current labor force data, visit the Georgia Labor Force Market Explorer at www.explorer.gdol.ga.gov to view a comprehensive report.