Georgia Hiring Picks Up in 2011

By Martha Dalton

Atlanta – Although Georgia's 9.9% unemployment rate for April still outpaces the national rate of 9%, some forecasters are optimistic about the state's hiring outlook. WABE's Martha Dalton has more.

Keith Ordan oversees staffing at The Intersect Group. The Atlanta-based search firm helps companies find qualified workers. In December of last year, he told WABE that Atlanta's IT sector would see huge growth this year. Now, almost halfway through the year, Ordan says, that's happened:
"For example, our IT staffing business has grown 70 percent just from the levels we were at in December."
Ordan says there's demand for a range of IT jobs -from help desk positions to business analysts.
In general, Georgia has steadily added jobs for the last three months, slowly bringing the jobless rate under 10 percent. Ordan says [that means things are headed in the right direction]:
"Companies are considering Georgia and Atlanta specifically as a great place to relocate because of the access to talent and the affordable cost of living. And so, I think there's certainly reason to be optimistic that the recent trend in unemployment figures is going to continue."
Ordan says companies are also making fewer layoffs, which has helped boost the job numbers.