State Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said that Georgia set another record in March for total jobs in the state.

Butler also noted that March preliminary numbers showed:

• unemployment held steady

• unemployment claims fell sharply

• annual numbers for labor force and employed both grew

“The state continues to create jobs at an impressive pace,” Butler said.  “We added more than 80,000 over the past 12 months. The March numbers were strong as well.”

Nationally, the unemployment rate stayed at 3.8 percent in March. Georgia’s rate remained at 3.9 percent. A year ago, Georgia’s unemployment rate sat at 4.2 percent.

Meanwhile, Georgia added another 1,600 jobs in March, pushing the state’s total to 4.6 million. The annual growth of 85,200 breaks down to 7,100 a month.  That number is greater than the entire population of cities like Hampton, Bremen or Stone Mountain.

The greatest job growth, at 3,500, was found in leisure and hospitality.

At the same time, new claims for unemployment slipped to just 18,746 filed in March. That’s a drop of 16 percent from February. The number is down 12 percent from what was filed in March 2018.

“These are the kinds of trends I like to see,” said Butler. “We’ve been adding jobs and seeing fewer layoffs consistently. Georgia’s had a great run for the past few years.”

Georgia’s number of employed residents was essentially flat, falling far less than 1 percent to reach 4.9 million. That number was still up by 29,389 from the total posted in March 2018.

Georgia’s labor force followed a similar pattern by slipping far less than 1 percent. The total of 5.1 million was up by 15,731 from the total the same month a year earlier.

Job postings on EmployGeorgia.com surged in March, rising 25 percent to pass 90,000.