Woodstock Sees Unemployment Rate Increase

The city of Woodstock saw a slightly higher unemployment rate for the month of June.

Woodstock’s rate inched higher to 7.7 percent last month, up from 7.4 percent in May. Last month’s rate is still better than the rate in June 2013, which clocked in at 8.3 percent.

The unemployment also rose for the second straight month in metro Atlanta, rising four-tenths of a point last month.

The June jobless rate was 7.6 percent, up from 7.2 in May. The metro rate in April was 6.5. The rate in June 2013 was 8.6 percent.

Seasonal factors accounted for much of the increase — summer job loss by non-contract school workers, temporary layoffs in manufacturing and an increased job force with the addition of graduates and students entering the job market.

The number of jobs in metro Atlanta fell 4,000 month-to-month to 2,460,900 in June, the labor department said, but that was still a 2.4 percent increase since June 2013.

Additionally, there was a 13.4 percent increase in new claims forunemployment insurance from May to June.

Metro Athens had the lowest area jobless rate in Georgia at 6.3 percent, while the Heart of Georgia-Altamaha region had the highest rate at 10.4 percent.

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