ATLANTA – Georgia’s unemployment rate rose slightly last month but remained below the national jobless rate, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday.
Unemployment in Georgia stood at 2.9% in October, up from a record-low of 2.8% set during the previous month but below the national rate of 3.7%.
“Although Georgia’s unemployment rate went up slightly from September, the rate of job creation still far exceeds those in the workforce looking for employment,” state Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler said. “We must continue to encourage jobseekers to join the workforce and take advantage of the incredible job opportunities we are seeing.”
Despite the uptick in unemployment, job numbers reached another all-time high last month, increasing by 3,700 from September to more than 4.8 million.
The largest job gains occurred in the arts, entertainment, and recreation sector, where jobs increased by 1,600. The finance and insurance sector was next with 1,500 jobs gained. The number of local government jobs rose by 1,400.
“We are starting to see some churn in the employment numbers with some isolated layoff events offsetting some of the all-time highs we have experienced,” Butler said. “However, we are still setting records in multiple sectors highlighting the current favorable hiring environment for Georgians.”
The number of employed residents fell by 9,527 last month to nearly 5.2 million. The number of unemployed was up 3,954 to 152,124, the first over-the-month increase since the early days of the pandemic in April 2020.
Initial jobless claims were down in October by 651 compared to September, or 3%, to 20,919. Over the year, initial claims fell by 6,391, or 23%.
There are more than 165,000 jobs listed online at EmployGeorgia.com. Industries with more than 10,000 job postings include health care with 30,000 postings, followed by retail trade with 16,000, and accommodation and food services with 14,000.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Georgia House Speaker David Ralston died Wednesday at the age of 68, just two days after the House Republican Caucus nominated a new speaker to succeed him in January.
Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, had been suffering from an extended illness. His wife, Sheree, his children, and other members of his family were with him when he passed away, his office announced. Arrangements will be announced in the future.
Ralston announced early last week that he would not seek election by his House colleagues to another term as speaker, citing his health. Voters in the 7th House District in Northwest Georgia reelected him Nov. 8 without opposition.
At the time of his death, Ralston was the longest currently serving state house speaker in the nation.
As provided by the Georgia Constitution, House Speaker Pro Tempore Jan Jones, R-Milton, will serve as speaker for the remainder of the current term, which ends in January.
On Monday, House Republicans nominated Majority Leader Jon Burns, R-Newington, to succeed Ralston as speaker. The full House will vote on the nomination on the first day of the 2023 General Assembly session Jan. 9.
Political leaders who served with Ralston remembered him Wednesday as an effective leader who played a key role in the major legislation the General Assembly adopted during his tenure.
“Speaker Ralston was a pioneer in the growth of Georgia’s Republican leadership and leaves an indelible mark on this state,” Gov. Brian Kemp said. “His last session as speaker will long be remembered for his landmark mental health reform bill, helping Georgians fight through inflation, and passing a historic income tax cut that puts more money in the pockets of taxpayers for years to come.
“We are also especially proud of our previous bipartisan efforts on reforming the citizens’ arrest law and adding an anti-hate crime statute to the Georgia code, which would not have happened without the speaker’s steadfast leadership. These historic accomplishments were only a handful of the numerous hallmarks of David Ralston’s decades-long service to Georgia.”
“Speaker Ralston was a steady, reliable guiding force under the Gold Dome in good times and tough times,” added state Sen. Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega, who was elected majority leader by Senate Republicans last week. “He cherished the idea of his beloved House being a body that truly represented all of Georgia’s people, and he respected each of the elected members that comprised it, regardless of partisan differences. It takes a genuinely good heart and decent person to lead that way.”
Democrats, too, reflected on Ralston’s passing.
“Georgia Democrats join the entire state in mourning Speaker David Ralston,” said U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, D-Atlanta, chairman of the Georgia Democratic Party. “Speaker Ralston was a statesman who led with fairness and honesty, looked for common ground, and always put his commitment to Georgia first. … Speaker Ralston will be missed dearly – by those who agreed with him, and by those who often didn’t.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Only about two-thirds of Georgia’s high schoolers have mastered core subjects at a level that would allow them to move on to the next grade, new data released this week by the Georgia Department of Education (DOE) shows.
The latest College and Career Ready Performance Index reports provide overviews of how students are performing across the state. The content mastery score covers English, math, social studies, and science. This year’s high school score of 64.7 is down from 2019’s score of 70, when the last full set of data was collected.
But in “readiness,” which includes topics like literacy and computer science, things have remained stable. This year’s high school students earned 73.2, down just a little over a point from 2019’s score of 74.5. The new data also includes information on elementary and middle school performance.
The results from 2019 are not directly comparable to this year’s results because of pandemic-related changes to the reporting process.
States must collect this data under federal education law so schools can be evaluated and held accountable. Georgia also uses the data to determine which schools need special attention and support. Data for each school and district are on the College and Career Ready Performance Index website.
This year, the DOE applied for and received federal permission for exceptions in how it reports the data because of the COVID pandemic. As a result of the reporting modifications, the DOE did not assign overall letter or number grades to each school and district as it usually does.
Going forward, DOE will use 2022 data as a baseline for evaluating school improvement.
State School Superintendent Richard Woods, a Republican who was re-elected to his third term in the office last week, acknowledged the pandemic has taken a toll on Georgia’s students.
“Georgia will continue to remain laser-focused on academic recovery,” Woods said. “We know the pandemic had an undeniable impact on student learning – it’s our role, responsibility, and privilege moving forward to ensure districts and schools have the resources they need to continue investing in students and combating the effects of lost learning opportunities.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp named former state Rep. Kevin Tanner Wednesday to head Georgia’s mental health agency.
Tanner, a Republican from Dawsonville, will become commissioner of the state Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities on Dec. 16, succeeding the retired Judy Fitzgerald.
“Kevin Tanner is a capable and dedicated leader who has made significant contributions to both the state and his community over more than three decades of public service,” Kemp said.
“It is thanks to his forward-thinking approach as head of the Behavioral Health Reform and Innovation Commission that Georgia is now implementing meaningful improvements in how we address mental health. The department will be in good hands under his leadership.”
After serving in local government as Dawson County manager, Tanner was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 2012, where he served a two-year stint as chairman of the House Transportation Committee.
In 2019, he was named chairman of the Behavioral Health Reform and Innovation Commission, which laid the groundwork for passage of legislation this year overhauling the delivery of mental-health services in Georgia.
Tanner left the General Assembly in 2020 in an unsuccessful bid for Congress. He then was appointed to the administrative post of Forsyth County manager early last year.
Monica Johnson, a division director at the mental health agency, will serve as interim commissioner until Tanner takes up the post.
Kemp also announced Wednesday that Robyn Crittenden, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Revenue, has accepted a position in the private sector effective Nov. 25.
“Over the past two decades, Robyn has ably led three state agencies and served as the 28th secretary of state,” the governor said. “As the first African-American woman to serve as a statewide constitutional officer in Georgia – along with her many other achievements – Robyn has both made history and made our state better.”
Frank O’Connell, the revenue agency’s general counsel, will serve as interim commissioner until a new head is appointed.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Georgia allowed an off-site doctor to perform unwanted gynecological procedures on detained women in a failure of human rights, the bipartisan U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has found.
“Female detainees in Georgia were subjected by a [Department of Homeland Security]-contracted doctor to excessive, invasive, and often unnecessary gynecological surgeries and procedures, with repeated failures to obtain informed medical consent,” Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., the panel’s chairman, said during a hearing Tuesday. He also called the detainees’ treatment “nightmarish” and a “disgrace.”
Ossoff and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., the subcommittee’s ranking minority member, released a lengthy report on the abuses.
“[This] in my view … represents a catastrophic failure by the federal government to respect basic human rights,” Ossoff added.
The problem initially came to light through a September 2020 whistleblower complaint.
One doctor – Dr. Mahendra Amin– was behind the abuses at the Ocilla facility between 2017 and 2020, Ossoff said.
Though Amin performed only 6.5% of total OB/GYN visits among the nationwide population of ICE detainees, Amin performed more than 90% of all Depo-Provera (a contraceptive) injections and other invasive gynecological procedures nationwide, Ossoff said. The patients were often unaware of or unwilling to receive the unnecessary treatments, the senator said.
Amin was subpoenaed by the subcommittee, Ossoff said, but invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to testify.
The federal government failed to thoroughly vet Amin before hiring him, even though he had faced lawsuits for performing unnecessary medical procedures, racked up medical malpractice complaints and was not board-certified in obstetrics and gynecology, Ossoff said.
LaSalle Corrections, a Louisiana company, runs the South Georgia ICE detention facility. Dr. Pamela Hearn, medical director for the company, said LaSalle’s management team had not been able to oversee Amin’s medical treatment and had not been given an opportunity to vet him.
Karina Cisneros Preciado was forced to receive an unwanted contraceptive shot from Amin while detained at the facility in 2020 and 2021. Amin told her she might need an additional surgery later, she testified before the committee.
“Dr. Amin’s abuse has caused ongoing damage to my physical and mental health,” Cisneros Preciado said. “I was only saved from the surgery because news about Dr. Amin’s abuse came out. Why was he allowed to harm me and so many other women?
“To this day, I am extremely scared to go to any doctor, for myself and my kids. … I don’t want this to happen any other women or any other person in general.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
