Labor Market
Georgia’s labor force and the number of Georgians with jobs both reached new highs in September, the Georgia Department of Labor said on Oct. 15. The same report shows a weaker picture from employers: payroll jobs in the state fell slightly over the month and were essentially unchanged from a year earlier.
The state’s unemployment rate rose to 3.3% in September from 3.2% in August. That is 0.1 percentage point lower than a year earlier and 0.9 point below the national rate of 4.2% for September.
The household side: more people working and looking
Georgia’s labor force, which counts residents who are working or looking for work, grew by 13,679 in September to 5,504,015. It was 73,187 larger than a year earlier. The number of employed residents rose by 10,279 to 5,325,131, up 80,830 over the year. The department said both figures were records for the ninth month in a row.
The number of unemployed Georgians rose by 3,400 over the month to 178,884, but was 7,643 lower than a year earlier. The rate rose because the number of unemployed residents grew by a larger share than the labor force as a whole.
The state figures line up with the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ seasonally adjusted Georgia series, which had the state’s rate at 3.2% in August and 3.4% in September 2025.
The employer side: jobs flat over the year
Payroll employment, which counts jobs at Georgia employers rather than working residents, slipped by 500 in September to 4,983,000. It was down 200 from September 2025. The department noted that jobs had risen in August.
Over the year, health care and social assistance added 18,900 jobs, by far the largest gain. Local government added 6,100, durable goods manufacturing 5,100, administrative and support services 3,600 and state government 3,400.
The biggest annual losses were in federal government (down 8,800), professional and technical services (down 8,600), construction (down 4,900), accommodation and food services (down 4,700) and finance and insurance (down 3,700).
September’s monthly moves were smaller and mixed. Local government added 3,300 jobs and professional and technical services 1,600. Private educational services lost 1,600, health care and social assistance 1,400 and accommodation and food services 1,100.
Initial unemployment claims fell to 15,874 in September, down 953 from August and 3,140 from a year earlier. The department said that was the lowest monthly total since April 1974.
Why it matters for job seekers
Very low layoff claims and a growing workforce point to a market where people are holding on to jobs and more residents are working. Flat payrolls point the other way: employers in Georgia, taken together, are not adding positions. Openings are concentrated in health care and the public sector, while professional and technical services, construction and the federal workforce have fewer jobs than a year ago. Job seekers in those shrinking fields are likely to face more competition than the headline unemployment rate suggests.
The catch
The two record numbers and the jobs number come from different surveys. The department’s headline cites “5.3 million jobs,” but that figure is the count of employed residents from the household survey. The payroll count of jobs located in Georgia is about 4.98 million and did not grow over the year. The household count includes self-employed people and residents who commute to jobs in other states, while the payroll count is based on where jobs are located and counts a person with two jobs twice, so the two series can diverge.
The release covers Georgia as a whole. It does not include September figures for metro Atlanta, and the statewide numbers should not be read as Atlanta’s. Like other monthly state estimates, the September figures are subject to revision.
Sources
- Georgia Department of Labor, “Georgia Marks Nine Consecutive Months of Record Labor Force and Employment Growth,” October 15, 2026. https://dol.georgia.gov/press-releases/2026-10-15/georgia-marks-nine-consecutive-months-record-labor-force-and-employment
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Local Area Unemployment Statistics: Georgia (Statewide), seasonally adjusted,” accessed October 15, 2026. https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LASST130000000000003
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “(Seas) Unemployment Rate,” accessed October 15, 2026. https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000
Featured photo: A Georgia Department of Labor office in Griffin, Spalding County, Georgia, photographed March 21, 2015. Representative image; the September report was issued by the department statewide. Photo: Michael Rivera, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Cropped from the original.
