DALTON, Ga. — It’s lemonade time here in a town that calls itself the carpet capital of the world.

How else can you look at it when you have recently shed more jobs than any other metropolitan area in America?

This stretch of carpet mills and floor covering outlets that hugs Interstate 75 between Atlanta and Chattanooga lost 4,600 jobs, or 6.9 percent, from June 2011 to June 2012, according to a new report from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Not that long ago, the mills that once produced nearly half the world’s carpets could not find enough workers. The road along the Interstate was jammed with out-of-towners who drove hundreds of miles to find bargains amid the rolls of remnants and stacks of samples.

More than a million new homes a year were being sold by the mid-2000s, and they all needed fresh carpet.