Jackson unemployment rate drops

Other Georgia counties and their jobless rates for November include:

•Barrow, 8.7 percent, down from 9.2

•Banks, 6.3 percent, down from 6.9

•Hall, 7.7 percent, down from 8.4

•Madison, 7.0, down from 7.9

•Athens-Clarke, 7.1, down from 7.8

Oconee County, with a jobless rate of 5.9 percent, continued to have the lowest unemployment rate in Georgia. That’s an improvement from 6.4 percent in October.

Hancock County, where 18.3 percent of people are unemployed, continued to have Georgia’s highest jobless rate, but even that was an improvement over October, when the rate was 19.8 percent.

The rates cited for the counties are not seasonably adjusted.

Labor commissioner Mark Butler said the state rate dropped because of an increase of 22,400 jobs, many of them in retail, finance, business services, education and health care.