Georgia’s jobless rate is down a full point in one year.

The state labor department reports the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate declined to 8.7 percent in October. That’s down three-tenths of a point from September and a full point from October 2011.

State Labor Commissioner Mark Butler says 36,000 jobs were created from September to October. That’s the largest one month increase ever.

 “That job growth pushed the number of jobs in October to the highest level in any month since December of 2008,” Butler said in a release.

The number of available jobs Georgia grew nine-tenths of a percentage point from September to October. More jobs were available in retail trade, education and health care, professional and business services, leisure and hospitality, technology, construction, financial services, and manufacturing.

Jobs have increased by 68,000, or 1.7 percent in the last year.

“Our labor force has grown consistently over the past year, indicating that Georgians are more optimistic about finding a job, and fortunately, we’ve had the job growth necessary to put these people to work,” said Butler.

The number of initial claims rose from 11,931 to 51,495 in October. Those claims are down 7.8 percent in the last year.

The number of long-term unemployed workers declined for the sixth consecutive month. The long-term unemployed are those out of work for more than 26 weeks. They make up 49.4 percent of those unemployed in Georgia, the lowest percent in more than two years.