While the unemployment rate in Hall County is by no means good, Greater Hall Chamber of Commerce President Kit Dunlap will take an improvement.

New numbers from the Georgia Department of Labor indicate that the area’s unemployment rate is dropping.

“At least (the rate is) not going up,” Dunlap said Thursday. “And it hasn’t gone up in the last two months.”

The state reported Thursday that the preliminary unadjusted unemployment rate in the metro Gainesville area, which includes all of Hall County, dropped to 9.1 percent in August, down from 9.4 percent in July.

The reduction in the rate is primarily due to a shrinking labor force statewide, the state Labor Department reported. The number of payroll jobs in metro Gainesville was 74,900, a loss of 3,500, or 4.5 percent, from 78,400 in August 2008.

The jobless rate, though lower than July, is nearly double what it was a year ago. There were 5,323 jobless workers in Gainesville in August 2008, when the unemployment rate was 5.7 percent.

But Dunlap sees the positive. She says the small drop in the unemployment rate and the area’s labor force means that most industries in the area are nearly done eliminating jobs.

“There are some that are probably still doing some downsizing, but hopefully that big deluge has eased,” Dunlap said.

Nationally, the U.S. Labor Department said Thursday that initial claims for unemployment insurance dropped to a seasonally adjusted 530,000 from an upwardly revised 551,000 the previous week. Wall Street economists expected claims to rise by 5,000, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.

Georgia Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond stressed that additional efforts must be focused on stimulating private sector job creation, particularly through Georgia’s small and midsized businesses.

Dunlap says there are signs that the local economy could improve in the near future. The chamber has 100 new memberships, most of which are from small-business owners, and the chamber’s economic development team already has prospects for the soon-to-be-constructed Gainesville Business Park.

“I see signs, absolutely,” Dunlap said.

More information on the Georgia Labor Department’s programs and studies are available at www.dol.state.ga.us.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.