National workforce report highlights Georgia pandemic response strategies

ATLANTA – The National Association of State Workforce Agencies released its bi-annual State of the Workforce Report recently outlining how the workforce agencies in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands assisted American workers through one of the worst economic downturns our country has experienced.

The report, subtitled “Responding to the Pandemic,” includes total claims processed, total benefits paid, innovative pandemic response strategies, programs within the state workforce agency, and Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act core programs. The report stated between March and December 2020, workforce agencies processed more than 1 billion unemployment claims and paid out more than a half-trillion dollars in unemployment benefits, including all state and federal benefit programs.

Georgia’s report highlighted the state’s 20.8 million continued weeks claimed in regular Unemployment Insurance in 2020 and the almost $17 billion in benefits released in regular UI and the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program. The report also featured GDOL’s innovative pandemic response strategies including the department’s Rapid Response program for re-employment that was transitioned to an unprecedented virtual service delivery approach, the agency’s partnership with the Georgia Department of Education for a COVID-19 School Employment Program, and the development of a library of instructional videos to assist job-seekers with work search. The entire report can be found at https://www.naswa.org/state-of-the-workforce-2021.

“The NASWA report shows just how much volume Georgia has seen this past year when compared with other states,” Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said. “As a leader in the nation in the number of claims processed and the disbursement of UI funds, it was also rewarding to share a few of the creative solutions GDOL devised to better serve Georgians during this historic time.”

The GDOL has paid more than $18 billion in state and federal benefits since the beginning of the pandemic in March of last year; 4,392,859 regular UI initial claims have been processed, more than the last nine years prior to the pandemic combined (4.0 million).

The number of initial claims filed throughout the United States for the week ending Feb. 6, was 793,000, a decrease of 19,000 from the previous week’s revised level of 812,000.

Georgia finished out the year with 4,558,900 jobs, more than doubling its monthly jobs number from November to December.

“Georgia is one of the leading states in the country in job creation,” Butler said. “We created 44,700 jobs in December 2020, only being outdone by Texas, which has the second-highest population in the country. These efforts can be contributed to opening government back up sooner than other states, our various re-employment programs, and making decisive and calculated decisions to allow hard-working Georgians to get back to their jobs.”

For more information on jobs and current labor force data, visit the Georgia Labor Force Market Explorer at https://bit.ly/3ayIPjd to view a comprehensive report.