Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said Thursday that Atlanta’s unemployment rate tumbled even lower in April.
 
Atlanta posted, according to preliminary numbers, monthly gains in employed residents and annual gains in most other critical measures. Unemployment claims were also lower than they were a year earlier for the 29-county metropolitan statistical area (MSA).
 
“Georgia’s economy continues to be strong,” Butler said, “In April we saw several communities set records for jobs and others set records for lowest unemployment rate. Typically, we see gains through the summer as well.”
 
Atlanta ended April with 2.8 million jobs. That’s an increase of about 50,100 from the job total as of a year ago but a decrease of 3,400 from last month’s total.
 
The unemployment rate fell in April, dropping by 0.2 percentage points to settle at 3.6 percent. A year ago, the rate was 3.8 percent.
 
Nationally, the rate for April dropped to 3.6 percent.
 
The labor force decreased in April by 3,877 to reach 3.07 million. That number is down by 5,373 from the total of April 2018.
 
Atlanta ended April with 2.96 million employed residents.  The number climbed by 2,712 in April and was up by 5,689 over April 2018’s total.
 
The number of unemployment claims went up in April by about 5 percent and were down by about 12 percent from the same period last year.     
 
Counties included in the MSA are Barrow, Bartow, Butts, Carroll, Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, Coweta, Dawson, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Forsyth, Fulton, Gwinnett, Haralson, Heard, Henry, Jasper, Lamar, Meriwether, Morgan, Newton, Paulding, Pickens, Pike, Rockdale, Spalding and Walton.