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Georgia’s Recession Fallout Far from Over
Economist: Hiring won't pick up until 2011
by Walter C. Jones, Morris News Service
August 27, 2009
ATLANTA - The stock market may be
rising and words of encouragement buzzing around Washington, but Georgia's job picture won't be
brightening soon, one noted economist said Wednesday.
Rajeev Dhawan, director of Georgia State University's Economic Forecasting Center, predicted
the recovery would be tepid."
Job losses in Georgia during this severe recession have totaled over 250,000, or almost 6.1
percent of the employment base, a more severe drop than that experienced nationally," he said.
Payrolls
will shrink less during the first half of next year when only 32,500 will be shed statewide. The
decline slows even further in late 2010, with just 11,300 jobs disappearing.
From the start of the recession to the end, Georgia will lose 8.5 percent of its work force,
according to Dhawan's quarterly forecast released Wednesday."
Employment levels will return to levels in 1998, thereby wiping out the gains of an entire
decade," he said.
Construction and manufacturing jobs have been among the hardest hit. On the other hand,
healthcare is the only sector adding workers.
Derek Carissimi, vice president of human resources at the Augusta research hospital MCG
Health, said his agency will keep expanding its staff.
"I think health care will continue to grow for the foreseeable future because of the new
technologies coming on line and new treatment programs," he said.
Two areas that had shown steady growth in recent years, hospitality and international
shipping, have also been slipping. Leisure and hospitality lost nearly 5,000 jobs so far in 2009
and will see another 3,600 vanish, Dhawan said.
"Given the weak state of the economy, we forecast job losses in leisure and hospitality for
the next two years," he said.
Likewise, the transportation, warehousing and utilities segment that includes activities
based on ports has been declining since last year. Another 9,000 workers will be off the payroll by
the end of this year, but a mild recovery next year will see one in 10 of those jobs return.
However, Maggie Thomas, branch manager in Pooler, Ga., for the Randstad employment agency,
said her office has seen an increase in transportation and warehouse jobs as well as requests for
receptionists and customer-service representatives.
"We've seen a varied pickup just across the board, small companies and large companies," she
said. "A lot of people are talking about how they have things in the pipeline."
Dhawan agrees with the consensus of economists that the recession has technically ended
though it may not feel like it.
"The fallout from the recession is far from over when viewed through the prism of job-loss
rates and income growth," he said. He's predicting that personal income will decline 1 percent this
year before growing just 0.4 percent in 2010.
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