The jobless rate declined last month in Chattanooga and Cleveland, Tenn., but unemployment rose in metropolitan Dalton, Ga., during August to the highest rate of any metro area in Georgia or Tennessee.
Dalton, the self-proclaimed Carpet Capital of the World, continued to suffer from the sputtering housing recovery last month. Unemployment rose again last month in Whitfield and Murray counties to push the jobless rate in metropolitan Dalton up by three-tenths of a percent to 10.7 percent.
The Georgia Department of Labor said the Dalton area shed 200 jobs over the past year even as the size of the workforce continued to grow. The number of initial claims for unemployment insurance, which is a measure of new layoffs, increased by 15.7 percent last month in Dalton, primarily due to the increase in claims from displaced manufacturing workers.
After two years of strong recovery from the 2009-2010 recession, the housing recovery has taken a pause over the past year or so in many U.S. markets. With fewer new home starts and more consumers shifting to hard surface flooring, sales of Dalton-made carpet have not rebounded as much as in previous economic recoveries.
More than two thirds of the nation's carpet in produced in the Dalton area.
Dalton's jobless rate in August was 2.6 percentage points higher than Georgia's overall unemployment rate, which was the highest of any state in the U.S. last month. Unemployment in Dalton was nearly double the U.S. rate of 6.1 percent in August.
Georgia Labor Commissioner Mike Butler said the Peach State overall still enjoyed a healthy 2 percent growth in jobs over the past 12 months and he expects the state's August jobless numbers to be adjusted downward once revisions are made.
Preliminary employment figures released Thursday in Tennessee and Georgia showed that metro Athens had the lowest area jobless rate in Georgia at 6.4 percent while Nashville had Tennessee's lowest metro jobless rate last month at 6.1 percent.
Although unemployment remained at double digit levels in Whitfield and Murray counties, most other counties in the Chattanooga region showed a decline in unemployment during August.
In the 6-county Chattanooga metropolitan area, unemployment fell four-tenths of a percent during August to 7.3 percent. In metro Cleveland, which includes Bradley and Polk counties, unemployment also fell by four-tenths of a percent to 7.1 percent.
Jakobiea Erskine, an 18-year-old graduate of Brainerd High School, was one of those benefiting by the improved employment market. She landed a job Thursday after being unemployed and looking for work for the past three months.
"It's been hard to get anybody to call me back, so it's great to finally have a job," she said after taking an orientation course at the Tennessee Career Center.
Erksine hopes to start her new job Monday through the staff placement company SMX at the Wrigley's candy plant in Chattanooga.
Across the Chattanooga region, the jobless rate was lowest last month in Franklin County in Tennessee at 6.4 percent and in Catoosa County in Georgia at 6.5 percent.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 757-6340