On Thursday of this week, the Georgia Department of Labor released the unemployment numbers for the month of May.  Chattooga County’s rate dropped slightly from April to last month.

In April of this year, the county’s unemployment rate was at 4.8% – for May the numbers dropped 2/10ths of a percentage point to 4.6%.  Georgia’s May unemployment rate dropped another 0.2 percentage points to reach 4.1 percent in May.

Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler says he is more concerned with the number of laborers in the workforce than the current unemployment number.  Butler said, “”We have a serious workforce issue reflected in the monthly drop in the labor force. We are looking to reemploy Georgians as a critical component for our economic recovery.”

Butler added, “With the amount of jobs listed in Employ Georgia combined with the number of employers I am hearing from daily who are struggling to find employees, we need to see our labor force increase dramatically.”