The lowest metro area figure is 4.2 percent in the northeast Georgia community of Gainesville, with Athens, Atlanta, Savannah and Valdosta all seeing jobless rates less than 5 percent.
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The rate declined as the number of unemployed residents decreased by 2,465 to 19,926. Lafayette County and Lee County wereat 4 percent, tied for fifth-lowest. The rate in April 2015 was 6.6 percent.
April’s jobless rate of 4.5 percent marked the 34th consecutive month the region recorded an unemployment rate under 10 percent. Retail trade and professional and business services also were down.
Elsewhere in the region, Allen County showed a rate of 4 percent, compared to 4.6 percent a year ago; Barren County dropped to 4.4 percent from 4.7 percent; Butler County was 5.1 percent, down from 5.4 percent. Industry sectors registering the largest monthly employment gains were leisure & hospitality and professional & business services. The U.S. preliminary rate for April was 5.0 percent, unchanged from the previous month. And, over the year, claims were down by 13, or 1.8 percent, from 717 in April 2015.
Over the past year, Tennessee’s unemployment rate decreased from 5.9 percent to 4.3 percent while the national rate declined from 5.4 percent to 5 percent.
Also, Savannah’s labor force decreased by 575 to 179,522. Campbell County’s 5.9 percent rate was down half a point from March, but not enough to avoid the top 10 list.
Metro Albany’s unemployment rate for April was 6 percent, down five-tenths of a percentage point from 6.5 percent in March.
IDES makes adjustments to its month-to-month data for the Chicago metro area to take into account predictable seasonal fluctuations in the job market.
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Total nonfarm employment increased 1,300 jobs from March to April.
