Source: Georgia Dept. of Labor. Click to view larger
Wednesday’s communication offered more bad news on the economic front as the jobless rate for Floyd County in January checked in at 10.9 percent. That was up from 10.4 percent in December and up from 8.9 percent in January a year ago.
Georgia Power’s Curtis Hart, vice president for economic development at the Greater Rome Chamber of Commerce, said the new numbers were, “tragic, but truly reflective of the overall economy across the nation.”
The unemployment figures were no better across the Coosa Valley region as each of Floyd County’s contiguous neighbors experienced increases from December to January. Gordon County’s rate came in at 14.2 percent; Bartow was at 12.8 percent, Chattooga at 12.6 and Polk County at 11.3 percent.
Rome Mayor Wright Bagby said it was of little solace that Rome and Floyd County were slightly better off than most of its neighbors.
“We’re doing everything that I can imagine to improve the situation. The Chamber and the industrial development people are all working so hard. It’s just a perfect storm scenario that I hope is going to end very soon,” Bagby said.
The southern suburbs of Chattanooga fared a little better. Walker County came in at 10 percent for January and Catoosa County was at 9.1 percent. The entire 15-county Northwest Georgia regional rate was 11.6 percent for January, while statewide, the seasonally adjusted jobless rate in January was 10.4 percent.
“At some point there has to be a turn,” said Hart. The economic development team at Georgia Power is reporting an uptick in activity.
“More companies are looking. That’s a plus sign,” Hart said.
Last week, William Steiner, executive director of the Northwest Georgia Regional Commission, said that so many manufacturing jobs have been lost and Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond projected during a Rome News-Tribune economic summit in February that as many as 20 percent of the jobs that have been cut would not come back.
Hart tried to sound a more optimistic note, pointing out that the Southeast has always been a magnet for the relocation of business and industry from other sections of the country.
“I think that will always be the case,” Hart said.
As I heard on the radio this morning in a story about Haiti: "The local authorities were always promising that they would bring jobs, but that never seemed to happen."