As reported in the November 18th, 2010 Atlanta Business Chronicle, the unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.9% in October. It should be pointed out that September's unemployment rate was revised downward by 0.1%. On a positive note, there was job growth of 22,300 over the last month. Even though most of the growth was in retail and considered temporary, that is usually going to be the case during the holiday season.
More robust job growth will be needed to achieve more significant cuts in unemployment. Even though we should continue to see more temporary unemployment in the next couple of months, a better than expected holiday season of retail sales can alter the future outlook for businesses. Therefore, it will be interesting to see how those numbers eventually play out. Though, our expectations should be tempered because most analysts are only expected a modest improvement from last year.
Challenging state fiscal conditions are another barrier to boosting economic activity and generating jobs. Sluggish tax revenues will make it harder to faciliate investment spending and attract businesses to our state. In order to counter this trend, Atlanta Business Chronicle article written by Dave Williams highlights the difficulty that Georgia's Department of Transportation is having in funding highway projects. In fact, they have made a decision to tap into reserves in order to spend $350 million right away. Unless they are able to generate additonal funding, that will be another obstacle to overcome in getting Georgia's economy on track.
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