Preliminary figures for April released by Georgia Department of Labor (DOL) earlier this week showed Fayette County’s estimated unemployment rate at 7.6 percent, up from the March revised figures of 7.4 percent. Unemployment across the 10-county Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) area rose from 8.8 percent in March to 8.9 percent in April.

The preliminary Fayette figures for April are based on an estimated county labor force of 51,826, with 3,914 of those people unemployed. The 7.6 figure for April represented a .2 percent increase from one month ago and was substantially higher than the 4.0 percent unemployment rate in April 2008.

The 10-county Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) area in April had an unemployment rate of 8.9 percent. The rate was slightly higher than the 8.8 percent unemployment rate in March and a bit lower than the 9.0 percent rate in February. Comparing figures across the ARC for the past year, unemployment rates were just below 5 percent in April 2008 and climbed each month to a high of 9 percent in February.

Georgia’s unemployment rate at 9.3 percent is higher than the national rate that stands at 8.9 percent. The national unemployment rate is March was 8.5 percent, while the rate in April 2008 was 5.0 percent.

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