Georgia’s job scene had some good news and a few wrinkles. Last month, the state added a solid 12,000 jobs, which sounds cool. But here’s the catch – the job growth engine seems to be running out of steam, according to the Georgia Department of Labor’s latest report.
Over the past year, the state managed to pull in an extra 95,700 jobs. Not too shabby, right? Well, not when you consider the speed bumps it had to navigate, like those pesky rising interest rates. Blame that on the Federal Reserve trying to keep inflation in check by tapping the brakes on the economy.
When it comes to which job sectors were the real MVPs, hospitality, office gigs, and manufacturing took the lead. But the champs of the month were accommodation and food services, admin and support services, and manufacturing.
Now, here’s the big picture: Since the pandemic put us all through the wringer, Georgia has managed to bounce back, adding more than 17% more jobs. That’s a whopping 248,000 more jobs than pre-pandemic times. On the job-hunting front, there are over 112,000 listings online. So, job seekers, especially in healthcare, have plenty of fish in the sea.
But, and there’s always a but, the number of job listings has been dropping. That’s one clue that the job market might be getting a bit tighter.
When we zoom out and look at the whole year, Georgia’s job growth rate stands at a modest 2%, which is a bit of a slowdown compared to the 3.6% we were rocking back in January.
Unemployment is still pretty low, historically speaking, but it did inch up a tad from 3.2% in July to 3.3% last month. That happened because more folks jumped into the workforce, but employers didn’t hire at the same pace.
The workforce, which is everybody working or hunting for jobs, grew by 12,439 folks in a month. That’s nearly twice the usual monthly growth.
People usually rejoin the workforce when they see plenty of job options or when they need cash in hand. Despite lower inflation compared to last year and some lucky workers getting fatter paychecks, it looks like some folks are still struggling to make ends meet. Credit card use is on the rise, and that’s not a great sign.
Economists are reading these tea leaves and saying, “Hmm, maybe we’re in for a ‘soft landing.'” In simple terms, that means inflation stays low, job growth stalls for a bit, and then it picks up again. But, here’s the curveball – with people piling on the debt and businesses playing it safe, we can’t rule out the possibility of a recession just yet. So, keep your seatbelt fastened; it’s still a bumpy economic ride.