ATLANTA – Georgia’s unemployment rate stood at 3.1% in March for the eighth consecutive month, the state Department of Labor announced Thursday.
The Peach State also had the highest labor force participation rate in the Southeast at 61.1%, while the number of jobs rose by 7,600 last month to a record high of nearly 4.9 million.
“With consistently low unemployment and jobs at an all-time high, the [labor department] is well- positioned to help Georgians during one of the most vulnerable times in their lives,” state Commissioner of Labor Bruce Thompson said.
Among job sectors, private education and health services reported a record high of 653,400 jobs, while the 515,700 leisure and hospitality jobs also was at an all-time high.
Sectors with the most gains between February and March were accommodation and food services, which gained 4,300 jobs, and the health care and social assistance sector with a gain of 3,000 jobs.
The number of employed Georgians rose for the fifth consecutive month to nearly 5.1 million. The over-the-month increase of 10,796 jobs was the most significant since March of last year.
Initial unemployment claims declined last month by 4% from February to 22,106. However, first-time jobless claims for the year were up 16%.
More than 125,000 jobs were listed online last month for Georgians to access. The industries with the most openings included health care at 28,000; accommodation and food services with 11,700; and retail trade with 11,300 openings.
Meanwhile, the labor department continued making progress on a series of improvements Thompson launched when he took office in January, including modernizing the system for processing unemployment claims to expedite the procedures and reduce fraud, and moving data to a cloud-based system to bolster security.
ATLANTA – Georgia native and insurance-industry veteran Simone Edmonson has been selected to serve as the state’s new mental health parity officer.
Last year’s landmark mental health legislation, House Bill 1013, created the position within the Office of Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner. Edmonson started in the new role last month.
In her new role, Edmonson will be responsible for implementing many of the insurance-related provisions of the mental health act, including making sure Georgia health insurers cover treatment for mental health and substance abuse problems on par with how they cover physical problems.
“Parity requires our insurance to provide coverage for mental health and substance use disorders, and we want to make sure that our Georgians get that treatment and that it’s fair,” Edmonson said.
Watching family and friends face mental health struggles drove Edmonson’s interest in the new role.
“I understand what [parity] can do and how important it is … that care is actually offered and care is not restrictive and not limited,” she said. “It was near and dear to my heart when I learned about mental health parity.”
Edmonson grew up in Savannah, where she attended Johnson High School, and then graduated with a bachelor’s degree in community health education from Georgia Southern University.
She spent several years working in public health, including in a community lead-risk prevention program in Savannah, before going on to work in the insurance industry for more than two decades.
Edmonson gained project management skills as well as knowledge of contracts and insurance policies during her time in the private sector.
“When I was offered this position, I was like ‘Yes, this is something I can see myself doing,’ ” Edmonson said. “I’ve always been an advocate for mental health with my own family.”
In her first month on the job, Edmonson has spent her time reviewing health plans for compliance.
She is focused on preparing a report that will be delivered to the governor and legislature in August about how health insurers are complying with the new mental health parity law.
If Georgians think they are not getting fair health-insurance coverage for mental health and substance abuse problems, Edmonson said they can file a complaint with the Department of Insurance on its website.
The mother of a daughter in her twenties, Edmonson said she recharges by going for long hikes, spending time with her family members, friends and pets, and reading. She recently hiked around Amicalola Falls in North Georgia.
Mental health is a problem that affects all communities in Georgia, Edmonson said.
“We have a melting pot, people coming from everywhere,” she said. “When it comes to mental health [problems], there is no discrimination at all. It happens to all of us.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – The University System of Georgia (USG) will waive SAT and ACT test requirements at most of the system’s 26 institutions for another academic year.
The waiver will apply to all of the system’s colleges and universities except the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, and Georgia College & State University.
The university system began waiving the test requirements in March 2020 with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. The waiver has been in effect for all but 10 months since then.
Most academic researchers have concluded that high school grade-point averages are a better indicator of future success in college than test scores, system Chancellor Sonny Perdue told members of the system’s Board of Regents Wednesday.
The regents heard a presentation during Wednesday’s meeting on the campus of the University of North Georgia in Dahlonega showing that freshman enrollment plummeted last year when the system briefly reimposed the testing requirement. Enrollment rebounded when the system went back to the waiver late last year.
Preliminary data for this coming fall – with the testing waiver remaining in effect – shows an increase in both applications and acceptances, Scott Lingrell, vice chancellor of enrollment and student affairs, told the regents.
“We’re cautiously optimistic about the fall,” he said. “We’re looking really good across our institutions.”
Dana Nichols, the system’s vice chancellor of academic affairs, said nearly 79% of accredited colleges and universities across the nation don’t require standardized tests for admission, including most schools in the neighboring states of Alabama, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Many of the schools in Florida and Tennessee also are test-optional, she said.
Perdue said the waiver will include a hold-harmless provision for Georgia College & State University, which will compensate the Milledgeville liberal-arts college financially for any declines in enrollment that occur because it is still requiring testing while most other USG institutions are not.
Perdue said extending the testing waiver through the 2024-25 academic year will help the regents decide whether to go back to testing when the waiver expires.
“This will give us better data analytics next year to make a decision,” he said. “We’re looking for the best data that can guide us for the future.”
In other business during the two-day meeting, the regents did not act on tuition for the coming school year, which they normally do in April. Perdue said the $66 million cut the USG took from the General Assembly in the fiscal 2024 budget left the system’s bean counters unprepared for a vote on tuition this month.
The regents have not raised tuition during five of the last seven years.
Perdue said the funds likely will be restored when lawmakers take up the mid-year budget during next year’s legislative session.
“I believe they understand that higher education … has been the backbone of economic development over the last 20 years,” he said.
The board is expected to vote on tuition at next month’s meeting,
ATLANTA – Student enrollment is continuing to decline at the University System of Georgia.
Overall enrollment for the spring semester at the system’s 26 institutions fell to 311,484, down 0.9% from last spring, Angela Bell, the system’s vice chancellor of research and policy analysis, told members of the Board of Regents Tuesday.
The system’s enrollment grew steadily from 2014 through 2021, Bell said during the regents April meeting on the campus of the University of North Georgia in Dahlonega. But enrollment has declined during the last couple of years to the point where it stands only about 500 students above 2019, she said.
The enrollment drop in Georgia is part of a national trend researchers say reflects low unemployment, financial uncertainty, and the lingering effects of the pandemic.
But the declining numbers are not showing up uniformly in every category of student or every category of school within the university system.
For example, Bell said undergraduate enrollment has fallen by 5% during the last five years. However, the enrollment of graduate students has risen 24% during that same period.
Enrollment at the university system’s four research universities – the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, Georgia State University, and Augusta University – was up 1% this spring over the spring semester of 2022. However, enrollment at the comprehensive universities – Kennesaw State University, Georgia Southern University, Valdosta State University, and the University of West Georgia – declined by 3% year over year, Bell said.
Demographically, enrollment of Hispanic and Asian students is on the rise. Asian students now make up 13% of the university system’s enrollment, while Hispanic students account for 11%.
The enrollment of white students has declined during the last five years to 45% of the overall student population. Black student enrollment is also down slightly, with Black students accounting for 25% of overall enrollment.
Gov. Brian Kemp and First Lady Marty Kemp (Photo by Beau Evans)
MARIETTA – A nonprofit that works with victims of human trafficking announced a partnership Tuesday with the Georgia Sheriffs’ Association and nonprofit health plan CareSource.
The two organizations will work with Rescuing Hope to raise awareness of human trafficking and how to avoid becoming a victim, train law enforcement officers and other first responders on how to handle cases of human trafficking, and provide health-care and other services victims need to get on the road to recovery,
“It will take all of us doing our part to eradicate human trafficking in Georgia,” Susan Norris, Rescuing Hope’s founder, said during a presentation at GracePointe Baptist Church in Marietta.
Gov. Brian Kemp has made combating human trafficking a major focus of his administration. In 2019, his first year in office, he created the GRACE Commission – a panel of law enforcement officials, advocates for human trafficking victims, and subject matter experts – and named First Lady Marty Kemp to chair the initiative. Both Kemps attended Tuesday’s event.
“This is one of those issues that the more you learn, the more you realize the needs that are out there,” Kemp said. “It’s heartbreaking. It’s brutal. The people doing these things need to be locked up for a long time.”
The governor signed legislation last week that increases the penalties for business owners who fail to post required notices about resources for human trafficking victims at their establishments.
Two years ago, Kemp formed a multi-agency Crime Suppression Unit including the attorney general’s office and Georgia Bureau of Investigation to concentrate in part on arresting and prosecuting human traffickers.
The GBI has brought 45 cases against alleged human traffickers this fiscal year, Marty Kemp said Tuesday, while Attorney General Chris Carr has rescued 116 victims and secured six convictions.
“They’re just doing amazing work,” First Lady Kemp said.
The new partnership is being funded with a $50,000 grant from CareSource to Rescuing Hope and a second $50,000 grant from CareSource to the sheriffs’ association.
Norris said Rescuing Hope will use its grant to hire a second caseworker, or “advocate” to work with victims of human trafficking.
The grant to the sheriffs’ association will go toward training law enforcement officers in how to handle human trafficking cases and to help raise awareness of human trafficking among the young people from dysfunctional homes housed at five Georgia Sheriffs’ Youth Homes.
ATLANTA – Georgia Power and the state Public Service Commission’s (PSC) Public Interest Advocacy Staff have reached an agreement resulting in a slight reduction in the utility’s request to recover $2.1 billion in higher fuel costs from customers.
If the commission approves the agreement next month, Georgia Power would trim $7 million off the recovery request. Still, the average customer who uses 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month would see an increase of at least $17 on their monthly bills.
“Just as Georgians paid higher prices at the gas pump in 2022, Georgia Power also paid more for the natural gas and other fuels we use to generate electricity, and the company does not earn any profit from these fuel costs,” Georgia Power spokesman John Kraft said late last week.
Georgia Power executives first announced the company would be seeking to recover its fuel costs for the last two years during testimony before the PSC at hearings last fall on the utility’s 2022 rate hike request.
The commission approved a $1.8 billion rate increase for Georgia Power in December, which raised the average residential customer’s monthly bill by $3.60 effective last Jan. 1. The utility then filed for the fuel costs recovery in February.
As part of the agreement filed last Thursday, Georgia Power agreed to file by next Monday a revised estimate of its under-recovered fuel costs through March 31. The utility also has agreed to increase its senior citizen discount from $6 to $8, bringing it to $32 per month.
The PSC will hold hearings on the proposed agreement early next month and vote on the plan May 16.
Besides the fuel costs recovery and the increase in base rates that took effect in January, Georgia Power also will be looking to recover the costs of bringing into service the two new nuclear reactors being built at Plant Vogtle. The first of the two reactors is scheduled to begin commercial operation by June.
