Cherokee Jobless Rate Stays at 7.6%

The number of Cherokee County residents with jobs grew by more than 500 in February to 105,032, according to preliminary figures released today by the Georgia Department of Labor.

The unemployment rate for the county was because the Cherokee labor force grew by more than 560 people to 113,685.

But compared with a year earlier, the Cherokee jobless rate has dropped a full point while the county has gained more than 1,800 people in the labor pool.

Cherokee is one of 20 Georgia counties with unemployment rates below 9 percent.

Its February rate was lower 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 Cherokee, 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