Douglasville Jobless Rate Down to 10.5%

The unemployment rate fell in both Douglasville and Douglas County in February, according to preliminary figures released today by the Georgia Department of Labor.

The bigger percentage gains came inside the city, where the jobless rate was 10.5 percent, down from a and 11.3 percent in February 2011.

The Labor Department found that 67 more Douglasville residents had jobs in February than in January, and the gain was 355 from February 2011 to a total of 13,590 people employed.

In the county as a whole, a gain of more than 300 jobs knocked the unemployment rate down to 9.4 percent from January’s revised 9.5 percent. The rate a year earlier was 10.8 percent.

The February rate for Douglas still was higher than the national rate of 8.3 percent, unchanged from January, and 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 Douglas County, 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