State Releases December Unemployment Numbers for Counties

Figures from the Georgia Department of Labor show that Stephens County’s unemployment rate stayed the same in the final month of 2015.

According to numbers released Thursday, Stephens County had a preliminary unemployment rate of 5.7 percent in December.

That is the same as Stephens County’s revised November unemployment rate and is a full percentage point lower than the revised December 2014 rate of 6.7 percent.

Looking at Stephens County’s labor force in December, it was 10,834. That is slightly lower than November’s labor force of 10,861 and below last December’s labor force of 10,979.

Also, Stephens County had 10,215 employed in December. That is down slightly from November’s 10,245 and last December’s 10,239.

Meanwhile, the Georgia Mountains region saw a slight increase from November to December in the regional unemployment rate, going from 4.4 to 4.5 percent.

However, Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said they attribute that to temporary holiday hires that were laid off and a year-end temporary slow down in manufacturing.

Butler said the region’s overall trends are heading in the right direction.

“Overall, not a really bad report,” said Butler. “We take a look at the long term, over the last 12 months when we talk about layoffs, layoffs for the Georgia Mountains region are actually down for over the year by almost 11 percent.”

Looking elsewhere around the area, Franklin County’s preliminary December unemployment rate went down one-tenth of a percentage point to 5.3 percent; Habersham County saw its preliminary unemployment rate go up three-tenths of a percentage point to 4.9 percent; and Banks County’s preliminary December unemployment rate went up two-tenths of a percentage point to 4.7 percent.