Laurens County jobless rate in February was 10.8 percent compared to Georgia's 8.6 percent and metro Macon's nine percent.

The Georgia Department of Labor says  February unemployment declined to nine percent in metro Macon.

According to a release, that's down from February 2012, when unemployment for metro Macon was 10 percent.

Georgia's February unemployment rate is 8.6 percent, not seasonally adjusted.

From January to February, metro Macon gained 500 jobs and fewer people were laid off.

RELATED | Macon's Unemployment Up in January 2013

Most jobs were added in the professional, business, education, health care, trade, transportation, warehousing, leisure and hospitality industries as well as in in local government.

Metro Macon includes Bibb, Crawford, Jones, Monroe and Twiggs counties.

Secretary of Veteran Affairs Eric Shinseki has set a goal for the VA to end veteran homelessness by 2015. The Carl Vinson VA Center in Dublin is holding summits in Albany and Macon as part of that initiative. 

Keiya Myles is spearheading this local event and she said that the goal is to bring interested members in the community together to pull resources and ideas on how to tackle this problem. 

"Anyone that is interested anyone that has a desire or interest of working towards ending homelessness we want you there, city officials, landlords, neighborhood service agencies volunteer agencies," said Myles. 

The summit in Macon will be held Tuesday, March 26th at Volunteer Macon at 195 Holt Ave. The summit will start 11:00 a.m.