Kennesaw Jobless Rate Still 10.5%

The unemployment rate was unchanged for Kennesaw but fell for all of Cobb County in October, according to preliminary figures from the Georgia Department of Labor.

Kennesaw’s jobless rate matched and was down from 11.1 percent in October 2010.

Cobb County’s unemployment rate, meanwhile, dropped to 9.1 percent from 9.4 percent in September and from 9.6 percent in October 2010. The local numbers are not adjusted for seasonal factors.

The Cobb job news paralleled the improvement for the official metro Atlanta area, where the October rate was 9.9 percent, down from 10.2 percent in September and in October 2010.

The unemployment rate for Kennesaw remained higher than both the seasonally adjusted state rate—10.2 percent in October, down from 10.3 percent in September and in October 2010—and the national rate—an even 9 percent in October, compared with 9.1 percent in September and 9.7 in October 2010.

The featured speaker at Bank of North Georgia’s Economic Forecast 2012 breakfast on Tuesday at the suggested that Kennesaw’s experience reflects the sluggish economy now and for years to come, the Marietta Daily Journal reported.

Albert Niemi Jr., the business dean at Southern Methodist University, predicted that the national unemployment rate will still be 9 percent at the end of 2012 because the economy isn’t producing jobs fast enough to overcome the growth in the labor force or to accommodate an estimated 12 million people who are underemployed or have given up even trying to find work, the said.

Kennesaw, which this month received news of and the coming to town, has seen job growth.

The city had 254 more residents working at the end of October than a year earlier and added 83 jobs in October alone, the Labor Department reported.

But city’s work force grew by 88 people in October and 165 people in a year to a total of 17,663 to counter the statistical benefit of the new jobs.

Countywide, the civilian labor force of residents 16 and older grew by more than 4,000 people in the past year to 371,014, according to the state Labor Department, but the number of jobs jumped by about 5,430 to 337,260.

An additional 1,770 Cobb residents got jobs in the past month alone, according to the state’s estimates.

The Atlanta metro area of Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Fulton, Gwinnett, Henry and Rockdale counties added 13,900 jobs in October, the Labor Department estimated. Most of those jobs were in service-related industries such as professional and business services, trade, transportation, and warehousing, along with education and health services.

Statewide in October, Georgia added 26,500 jobs, up 0.7 percentage point to 3.82 million from 3.79 million in September. Early holiday-related hiring in retail, transportation and warehousing accounted for 12,200 of those new jobs.

October was the 51st consecutive month Georgia exceeded the national unemployment rate.