The Georgia Department of Labor announced today that Metro Macon’s unemployment rate for August was 8.6 percent, unchanged from July. The rate in August of last year was 8.5 percent. 

The rate remained unchanged although the number of jobs increased by 500 and the number of initial claims for unemployment insurance, a measure of new layoffs, dropped by 23 percent.

There were 99,200 jobs in Macon in August, up 0.5 percent from July. The gains came mostly in private education and health services and in local government. However, there was an over-the-year loss of 100 jobs, or 0.1 percent, from August 2013. The job losses came mostly in local and federal government.      

There were 782 new claims for unemployment insurance filed in August, a decrease of 233 from 1,015 in July. Most of the decrease in claims came in manufacturing and construction, health care and social assistance, accommodations and food services. Over the year, the number of claims declined 21.4 percent from the 995 claims filed in August 2013.    

Metro Athens had the lowest area jobless rate at 6.4 percent, while metro Dalton had the highest at 10.7 percent. 

Meanwhile, Georgia’s seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate for August was 8.1 percent, up from a revised 7.7 percent in July. It was 8.2 percent in August 2013.