ATLANTA – State Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said today that 2017 was a banner year for job creation and employment in the Georgia Mountains area.
The 13-county Georgia Mountains region ended the calendar year with 9,645 more employed residents, 7,444 more people in the workforce, and an unemployment rate down .7 percent.
“This is a very good year for the Georgia Mountains area,” Butler said. “All of the major indicators trended in the right direction. I’m expecting the same will continue in 2018.”
The labor department also released the December preliminary county unemployment rates and in Habersham County that rate held steady at 4 percent, same as the revised November rate. Habersham’s preliminary county unemployment was down 1.2% from December 2016.
The labor force in Habersham County in December was 19,169 of those 18,409 were employed and 760 were unemployed.
The Georgia Mountains region includes Banks, Dawson, Forsyth, Franklin, Habersham, Hall, Hart, Lumpkin, Rabun, Stephens, Towns, Union, and White counties.
Statewide, the current unemployment rate is 4.4%, three-tenths of a percentage point higher than the national average of 4.1%.
