ATLANTA – First-time unemployment claims in Georgia declined by 9,274 last week to 44,892, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday.
The agency also announced Georgians have received more than $15 billion in unemployment benefits since coronavirus took hold in Georgia last March, more than during the last 27 years combined.
“Over 1.4 million Georgians have received benefits during the past seven months,” state Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler said Thursday. “Many are beginning to return to the workplace or are looking for new career opportunities.”
Those who haven’t gone back to work are facing a looming loss of unemployment benefits. Due to federal guidelines, the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program is limited to 39 weeks.
Claimants who began receiving benefits at the beginning of the program last February will begin to exhaust benefits in the next few weeks.
Since mid-March, the job sector accounting for the most initial unemployment claims in Georgia is accommodations and food services with 941,356 claims. The health care and social assistance job sector is next with 452,617 claims, followed by retail trade with 416,131.
The labor department offers online resources for finding a job, building a resume, and assisting with other reemployment needs. Employment opportunities include human resource specialists, restaurant managers, bookkeepers, 911 operators and licensed practical nurses.
The agency’s Business Services Unit is now centralizing its efforts to market virtual job fairs, customized recruitment, and other reemployment services, Butler said.
ATLANTA – Georgia’s deep-water ports are recovering quickly after taking some hits during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, the head of the Georgia Ports Authority (GPA) said Thursday.
The number of twenty-foot equivalent container units (TEUs) the Port of Savannah handled during the last fiscal year fell from 4.5 million to 4.4 million, largely due to the pandemic’s impact on business last spring, Griff Lynch, the authority’s executive director, said during his annual State of the Port address.
But by last month, business at Savannah was picking back up to the point that the port set a monthly record by moving 412,148 TEUs, an increase of 11.4% over the previous September.
To the south at the Port of Brunswick, roll/on, roll/off cargo – primarily autos – were up 1% during the first quarter of this year after declining by 8% during fiscal 2020.
“We’re actually breaking records in a pandemic,” Lynch said.
Lynch used the annual speech in Savannah – delivered online for the first time – to announce several new projects in and around the Port of Savannah and update ongoing improvements.
New projects include a 1.2- million-square-foot facility in Bryan County to be built by medical goods provider Medline Industries. Construction is expected to be completed late next year, with FedEx leasing 415,000 square feet to provide e-commerce capabilities.
Another 800,000-square-foot distribution center to handle e-commerce will be built in Liberty County, Lynch said.
At the Port of Savannah itself, plans call for straightening Berth 1 at the Garden City Terminal to expand its capacity to dock four 15,000-TEU container ships and three additional vessels simultaneously. The project will take approximately two years.
While the Berth 1 work is in progress, smaller container ships will use the port’s Ocean Terminal. Retrofitting the terminal to accommodate the container ships already is underway and should be finished by the end of this year, Lynch said.
Meanwhile, the deepening of Savannah Harbor to accommodate the new generation of giant container ships is 75% complete and due to be finished by the end of next year. The long-anticipated project has been accomplished in fits and starts over two decades due to the difficulties Georgia’s congressional delegation has faced getting enough federal funding for the work.
Also making good progress is the port’s Mason Mega Rail project, which will connect the Port of Savannah with cities in the Mid-South and Midwest. Rail cargo, which now accounts for 18% to 20% of lifts at Savannah, is expected to increase to 25% to 27% within five years.
Lynch also announced that another rail facility several hundred miles from Savannah soon will be expanded. The Appalachian Regional Port near Chatsworth in Northwest Georgia, which opened two years ago primarily to move exports by rail to Savannah, soon will build a new facility that will expand its cargo capacity by 28,000 TEUs.
“We never expected it be as successful as it is,” Lynch said.
Further into the future, the port that has become the busiest in the nation for containerized cargo exports is planning to build a new terminal on Hutchinson Island on land the port authority already owns. The new terminal will let the authority add three new berths, increasing the Port of Savannah’s capacity by 3 million TEUs per year, Lynch said.
“We’re making strategic expansions to ensure cargo fluidity as Savannah’s container trade increases,” said Will McKnight, the authority’s board chairman. “Our long-term infrastructure investments ensure GPA is ready when our customers are ready to grow.”
ATLANTA – A Tifton business leader will lead the state’s efforts to attract more businesses to rural Georgia and expand those already there.
Gov. Brian Kemp Wednesday announced Tift County Development Authority President and CEO Brian Marlowe will join the state Department of Economic Development as deputy commissioner for rural Georgia.
In that role, Marlowe will head the Rural Strike Team, a group of economic development officials Kemp formed last year to spearhead job creation in rural parts of the state.
“Rural Georgia is ripe for investment,” the governor said. “We believe we can land big projects in rural communities across our state.”
Kemp pledged to make rural economic development a priority when he ran for governor two years ago. The Rural Strike Team aims to do that by tapping into expertise provided by Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College’s Rural Prosperity Center, the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia and the House Rural Development Council formed by Georgia House Speaker David Ralston.
The strike team’s specific charge is to promote and market industrial sites in rural communities large enough to house projects that will benefit multiple counties.
“With more than 20 years spent working in rural economic development, Brian’s track record of locating new projects in his community, expanding existing industries, and generating opportunity in South Georgia speaks for itself,” Kemp said Wednesday. “I have every confidence that by working with leaders in the General Assembly, the business community, our universities and technical colleges, state agencies, local developers, and the world-class team at [the Department of Economic Development], Brian will help us move the needle for rural Georgia.”
Besides the development authority position, Marlowe also serves as president and CEO of the Tift County Chamber of Commerce. He also was a member of Kemp’s transition team following the 2018 gubernatorial election.
ATLANTA – A new poll shows President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden running even in Georgia with Election Day just two weeks away, as are Republican U.S. Sen. David Perdue and Democratic opponent Jon Ossoff.
The same poll of 759 likely Georgia voters released by The New York Times and Siena College shows GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler has opened up a lead over Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Collins behind Democrat Raphael Warnock in the fight for second place and a spot in an expected runoff for Georgia’s other Senate race.
The survey, conducted by telephone Oct 13 through Oct. 19, has Trump and Biden tied at 45%, the same result as in a previous New York Times/Siena poll released on Sept. 24.
“Georgians seem locked in and equally divided when it comes to their choice for president,” said Don Levy, director of the Siena College Research Institute. “Democrats remain committed to Biden, Republicans remain committed to Trump and independents are tilting a little in Biden’s direction.”
The demographic divides between the two candidates also have remained about the same in Georgia. Men support Trump by 12 points, while women back Biden by 10 points.
Biden is the overwhelming favorite of Black voters, with the support of 81%. Trump has the support of 65% of white voters.
Whites without a college degree back Trump 76% to 18%, but the president’s support among whites with a college degree is a much narrower 52% to 40%.
The poll also showed Perdue and Ossoff deadlocked at 43%, with Libertarian Shane Hazel at 5%. Last month’s survey had Perdue up by 3%.
Meanwhile, Democrat Warnock, the pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, is the leader in the special election to complete the unexpired term of retired Sen. Johnny Isakson.
The Siena poll showed Warnock with 32%, followed by Loeffler with 23% and Collins with 17%. None of the other candidates in the crowded field broke single digits.
Loeffler, appointed to the Senate by Gov. Brian Kemp late last year, and Collins, a veteran congressman and former member of the General Assembly, have been waging brutal campaigns to win the right to take on Warnock, the Democratic frontrunner, in a second round in early January. With about 20 candidates on the special election ballot, it’s highly likely no one will amass the 50%-plus-one vote margin on Nov. 3 needed to avoid a runoff.
The poll’s margin of error was plus-or-minus 4.1%.
ATLANTA – A former health-care executive in Gwinnett County has been sentenced to one year and a day in federal prison for delaying the shipment of personal protective equipment (PPE) during the coronavirus pandemic.
Christopher Dobbins, 41, of Duluth pleaded guilty in July to hacking his former employer, the medical device packing company Stradis Healthcare, and sabotaging their electronic shipping records, causing more than $200,000 in damage.
“As businesses worked to get PPE into the hands of those most in need of it, Dobbins chose to hack his former employer and maliciously interrupt that process,” said Byung J. “BJay” Pak, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia. “His actions caused delays in the delivery of desperately needed equipment in the midst of a worldwide pandemic.”
Before being fired last March, Dobbins had administrator access to the computer systems containing the company’s shipping information, Pak said.
Three days after receiving his final paycheck, Dobbins used a fake user account that he had previously created to log into the company’s computer systems. He then conducted a computer intrusion that disrupted and delayed the medical device packaging company’s shipments of PPEs.
While logged in through the fake user account, Dobbins created a second fake user account and then used that second account to edit 115,581 records and delete approximately 2,371 records. The edits and deletions disrupted the company’s shipping processes, causing delays in the delivery of much-needed PPEs to health-care providers.
Besides the prison sentence, Dobbins also was ordered to pay $221,200 in restitution.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as part of Georgia’s Coronavirus Fraud Task Force, formed by state and federal prosecutors to protect Georgians from criminal fraud arising from the pandemic.
