Newly released estimates from the Georgia Department of Labor suggest the local job market is still healing, but the improvements are undoubtedly coming too slowly for many job seekers.
The jobs data have been delayed considerably over the last couple of months because of the partial shutdown of the federal government, but we did get estimates last week about the number of payroll jobs.
Between October 2012 and October 2013, statewide employment increased by a healthy 2.1 percent with the addition of more than 85,000 jobs. But 63,000 of those jobs were in the Atlanta metro area.
Every other metro area in the state is seeing markedly slower job growth. Rome, Hinesville, Brunswick and Warner Robins actually lost jobs over the last year.
The Savannah metro area (Chatham, Effingham and Bryan counties) had 159,600 payroll jobs in October, an increase of just 1,200 from October 2012. That’s an anemic growth rate of .8 percent, which is almost certainly too slow to keep pace with population growth.
We’re continuing to see the effects of the sequester. Federal employment in the area dropped by 500 positions. The nature of those jobs isn’t detailed in the current estimates, but about half of the statewide losses in federal jobs came from the Department of Defense.
Those losses represent a significant drag on an already weak recovery.
The federal job losses of course have other impacts on the local economy because some individuals and families have less discretionary income. That puts downward pressure on job growth in a variety of other areas.
And those federal job losses don’t include the private contractors that have seen their incomes reduced by federal cuts.
Somewhat surprisingly, the employment sector that includes construction also lost jobs over the last 12 months. I’ve been looking for that number to bottom out pretty much all year, but that might not happen until 2014.
Only a few areas showed strong growth between October 2012 and October 2013.
Retail trade employment jumped from 18,100 to 19,100 — an increase of 5.5 percent. Leisure and hospitality jobs climbed from 21,500 to 22,200 — a 3.3 percent increase.
As I’ve said before, there are some perfectly fine jobs in those fields, but I don’t think we want retail and tourism leading our employment recovery.
Employment in information, manufacturing and financial activities showed no growth over the last year.
The number of claims for unemployment insurance in October was down about 18 percent from the previous year. That’s an encouraging number, but we’ll have to wait and see whether that suggests an increased pace of hiring.
City Talk appears every Sunday and Tuesday. Bill Dawers can be reached via billdawers@comcast.net and http://www.billdawers.com. Send mail to 10 E. 32nd St., Savannah, GA 31401.
BY BILL DAWERS