Not long ago, Georgia’s new jobless claims number was a weekly snapshot of a pandemic-damaged economy and a struggling labor market.
But the number of claims for unemployment benefits has fallen from the stratosphere to pre-pandemic levels.
Part of the reason is that some Georgians are no longer eligible after receiving payments earlier in the pandemic. Georgia opted out of the federal programs in June and many people covered by state programs have exhausted their eligibility.
But the steep downturn in claims also reflects a surging economy with lots of job openings.
The state’s Department of Labor processed 2,433 initial jobless claims in the week before Christmas and has averaged 3,226 during the past four weeks. That is not much different from February 2020, when the weekly average was 5,524 claims.
It’s a far cry from April of last year, when claims reached nearly 400,000 one week, and the summer and early fall of 2020, when they still topped 50,000. Weekly claims regularly exceeded 20,000 for the first half of this year, and were still roughly twice as high as pre-pandemic levels in September.
While inexact, the long slide in jobless claims is near-proof of a dramatic economic recovery, with job growth far outpacing job cuts, said Mark Butler, the state’s labor commissioner.
Since hitting bottom in April 2020, Georgia has added 561,800 jobs as the unemployment rate dropped to a record low of 2.8% last month. That rate only includes people looking for a job, but those...
WASHINGTON (TNND) — The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced criminal charges against 455 people across 45 states accused of participating in health care fraud schemes involving more than $6.5 bi...